I felt like sharing a Billy Collins poem this morning, and "Picnic, Lightning" won the Poetry Friday lottery. I really love the tiny dark unmoored ship and the ending images of immersing yourself in the now, the ordinary moments that make live so vivid.
Picnic, Lightning
"My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three."
—Lolita
It is possible to be struck by a meteor
or a single-engine plane
while reading in a chair at home.
Safes drop from rooftops
and flatten the odd pedestrian
mostly within the panels of the comics,
but still, we know it is possible,
as well as the flash of summer lightning,
the thermos toppling over,
spilling out onto the grass.
And we know the message
can be delivered from within.
The heart, no valentine,
decides to quit after lunch,
the power shut off like a switch,
or a tiny dark ship is unmoored
into the flow of the body’s rivers,
the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore.
This is what I think about
when I shovel compost
Read the rest here…
–Billy Collins, all rights reserved
Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect has oodles of October poems from the poetry stretch this week, including several I wrote as daily poems.
The Poetry Friday Roundup today is at Anastasia Suen’s Picture Book of the Day. Enjoy!
And only one week left to nominate your favorite poetry book of the year (and all the other categories) for a Cybils! Check it out here and start nominating.