This is the only life I have, this one in my head,
the one that travels along the surface of my body
singing the low voltage song of the ego,
the one that feels like a ball between my ears
sometimes, and other times feels absolutely galactic,
the life that my feet carry around like two blind
scholars working together on a troublesome manuscript.
This is the only life I have, and I am standing
dead in the center of it like a man doing a rope trick
in a rodeo, passing the lasso over his body,
smiling inside a twirling of ovals and ellipses.
This is the only life I have and I never step out of it
except to follow a character down the alleys of a novel
or when love makes me want to remove my clothes
and sail classical records off a cliff.
Otherwise you can always find me within this hoop of
myself,
the rope flying around me, moving up to encircle my head
like the equator or a halo or a zero.
-Billy Collins
Thank you to Glenda Burgess, on whose beautiful blog I found this poem, which I’ve never seen before.
I had the opportunity to meet and hear Billy Collins read his poems at a writers’ workshop at Stoneybrook University in Southampton, NY. His poems are witty and accessible. I had never heard of him before although he was the poet laureate from 2001 to 2003. It is poetry that helps me through these days we live in, Collins among them. I share a lot of poems on Instagram and your quotes are how I found your page.
What is your 2019 word? I selected Simplify