A Great Noise

            To hear "Noise" read by
the poet, click here or
on the title.

            Then he died.And they
said: Another soul 
               free .

            Which was the wrong way to
see it, I thought, having been there,having lain down beside him untilhis body
became rigid with what I believewas not the stiffening of deathbut of surprise,
the initialunbelief of the suddenly ex-slave hearing

            
               Rest; let it fall now,
this burden.
            

            The proof most commonly
put forth for the soulas a thing that exists and weighssomething is thatthe
body weighs something less, after death--

            a clean fact.

            In The Miraculous
Translation of the Bodyof Saint Catherine of Alexandria to Sinai the number
of angels required to bear the bodyall that way through the aircomes to
four,which tells us nothing about weight, or the lack of it, sincethe angels
depictedare clearly those for whom

            the only business is hard
labor,

            the work angels, you can
tell:the musculature;the resigned way they wear clothes.

            Beyond them in rank,in the
actual presence of God,the seraphim stand naked, ever-burning,

            six-winged: two to fly
with,in back; two at the face to withstandthe impossible winds thatare God;

            and a third pair--for
modesty,for the covering of sex.

            A greatnoise is said to
alwaysattend them:less the humming of wings thanthe grinding you'd expect

            from the hitching of what
is hot,destructive,and all devotion

            to the highest, brightest
star.