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Sunday, May 18, 2008

Your Sunday Poem



This one from Billy Collins from his book: Nine Horses, available in paperpack at your favorite store and full of wonderful Billy Collins poems.



Ignorance

It's only a cold, cloud-hooded weekday

in the middle of winter,

but I am sitting up in my body

like a man riding an elephant

draped with a carpet of red and gold,

his turban askew,

singing a song about the return of the cranes.



And I am inside my own head

like a tiny homunculus,

a creature so excited over his naked existence

that he scurries all day

from one eye socket to the other

just to see what scenes are unfolding before me,

what streets, what pastures.



And to think that just hours ago

I was as sour as Samuel Johnson

with a few bad sherries in him,

quarreling in a corner of the Rat and Parrot,

full of scorn for the impertinence of men,

the inconstancy of women.



And to think further than I have no idea

what might have uplifted me,

unless it was when I first opened

the front door to look at the sky

so extensive and burdened with snow,

or was it this morning

when I walked along the reservoir?



Was it when the dog

scared up some ducks off the water

and I stopped to watch them flapping low

over the frozen surface,

and I counted them in flight,

all seven -- the leader and the six hurrying behind.



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