I Ask You

I am looking outside at bare tree branches - again. They are still taupe against a pale grey sky; nothing has changed in months. I am tempted to feel sad. No, I mustn't give in to sadness. I ease back a little from the melancholy and think again. I realize that I haven't read Billy Collins in a while. He usually dispels the gloom. A google search brought me to www.poemhunter.com and this poem.

I Ask You

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside--
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.

But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.

No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles--
each a different height--
are singing in perfect harmony.

So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt--
frog at the edge of a pond--
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches. 

Billy Collins

Cosmic forces must be at work, or why else would I have been directed to such a perfect poem for my mood today. Although I don't have singing candles on the table, I do have a patchwork of today's newspapers, overseen by a vase of yellow flowers. Make that crate of oranges in the poem, a bag of apples on my kitchen counter and those water glasses, a flower pot waiting to be filled and I am there. My heart might not be a frog at the edge of a pond thumping, but my breath is a wisp of willow waiting for Spring. I think that I will just stay here and wait for Billy, because he said that he was going to fly to a province with one enormous sky and a million empty branches.  We're over here, Billy!!

Have an awesome day!!