Billy Collins: A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal

Every morning I sit across from you

at the same small table,

the sun all over the breakfast things—

curve of a blue-and-white pitcher,

a dish of berries—

me in a sweatshirt or robe,

you invisible.

Most days, we are suspended

over a deep pool of silence.

I stare straight through you

or look out the window at the garden,

the powerful sky,

a cloud passing behind a tree.

There is no need to pass the toast,

the pot of jam,

or pour you a cup of tea,

and I can hide behind the paper,

rotate in its drum of calamitous news.

But some days I may notice

a little door swinging open

in the morning air,

and maybe the tea leaves

of some dream will be stuck

to the china slope of the hour—

then I will lean forward,

elbows on the table,

with something to tell you,

and you will look up, as always,

your spoon dripping milk, ready to listen.

Billy Collins: View from a Bridge

I never thought
of myself
as a little universe
inside a big one
until just now.

Billy Collins: Wet Morning

The big red bougainvillea
is drooping,

an effect of last night's

wind and rain.

Thunder too,

but plants don't have ears,

or is that

what the petals are for?

Billy Collins: Children

There's a new movie out
titled Children.

I don't know

what it's about

but I like the voice 

on the radio

when it says:

"Children: now playing everywhere."

Billy Collins: Jazz Man

I've taken some lessons
and worked on

some nice voicings for the chords

but all I have to do

is raise the keyboard cover one inch

and the cat dashes from the room.

Billy Collins: Oxymorons

Family Fun

Beach Culture

Office Party

Dog Person

Chilrdren's Hospital

Light Pollution

Happy Birthday

Billy Collins: The Dead

The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.
They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

Billy Collins: Dogma

I might be an atheist
were it not

for all the tall angels

and the pudgy cherubs

in the silvery clouds

presiding over all those miracles.

Billy Collins: Three for a Quarter

Just as you can tell the age of a tree
by the rings within it,

you can tell the vintage

of a country song

by the coin required

to play a tune on the jukebox.

Billy Collins: Brightly Colored Boats on the Banks of the Charles

What is there to say about them
that has not been said in the title?
I saw them near dawn from a glassy room on the other side of that river,
which flowed from some hidden spring
to the sea; but that is getting away from
the brightly colored boats upturned
on the banks of the Charles,
the sleek racing sculls of a college crew team.

They were beautiful in the clear early light—
red, yellow, blue and green—
is all I wanted to say about them,
although for the rest of the day
I pictured a lighter version of myself
calling time through a little megaphone,
first to the months of the year,
then to the twelve apostles, all grimacing
as they leaned and pulled on the long wooden oars.

Billy Collins: Koan in the Rain

You want to know
the sound of one hand clapping?

It is the same

as the sound of the other hand

holding the umbrella,

only slightly louder.

Billy Collins: The First Straw

The camel felt nothing
as it stood outside the tent,
its nose lifted in the thin desert air.

Billy Collins: The Visit

The wind blew
open the front door

and sat down

in my father's chair.

Billy Collins: Teenager

Even a branch on an evergreen
may take an unexpected turn

up, down or sideways

and grow substantial

in some weird direction.

Billy Collins: Creative Writing

When I told a student
not to use single quotation marks

around lines of dialogue,

he told me that all our words

are already inside the quotation marks

that God placed around Creation.

Billy Collins: Headstones

If the dates show
the husband died
shortly after the wife--

first Gladys than Harry,

Betty followed by Tom--

the cause is often

gradual starvation

and not a broken heart.

Billy Collins: Mute potato

Before introducing it to a pot
of boiling water,

I caught a medium-size
Idaho potato

staring up at me

with several of its many eyes.

Billy Collins: Carbon dating

He tried it once
as a last resort

but most of the women 

were a million years old.

Billy Collins: Dog

 When she runs in her sleep,

eyelids twitching,

legs churning sideways on the floor,

I wonder if she's chasing

a squirrel or being chased

by an angry farmer waving a rake.

Billy Collins: The Naked Eye

There was no eye lid
to cover the naked eye

so she covered herself

with some scenery,

a meadow she liked to look at

when the other eye wasn't looking