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Billy Collins (22 March 1941 - / New York City)
Picnic, Lightning
It is possible to be struck by a
meteor or a single-engine plane while
reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians
are flattened by safes falling from
rooftops 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 on 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 into a wheelbarrow, and when
I fill the long flower boxes, then
press into rows the limp roots of red
impatiens -- the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth from the
sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then
the soil is full of marvels, bits of
leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam. Then
the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the
clouds a brighter white, and all I
hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone, the small
plants singing with lifted faces, and
the click of the sundial as one hour
sweeps into the next.
Read poems about / on: valentine, red, flower, summer, power, home, dark, death, river
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Takes us vividly into the apprehension of death and its constant, lightninglike, possibility. And reminds us that our open-ness to the immediate possibility of Death's instant hand also opens us to life: then is the soil full of marvels......Then is the wheelbarrow a wilder blue... I like his metaphorical description of a stroke:
a tiny dark ship is
unmoored into the flow of the body's
rivers, the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore.
At his best, Collins rewards us with his eloquence, his wit, his accessibility, his paradoxical seriousness, his memorable phrasing, his imaginative imagery, and his very human voice. He seems to strive always to make himself clear, unlike many, lesser, talents who obfuscate in hopes their ambiguity will be taken for profundity. We readersl/listeners appreciate that he is true to his contract with us, that he is not trying to con us but to communicate with us, to entertain us, to illuminate some part of our lives. This, plus his charming in-person recitations and the sound of his recorded voice, make up the very solid foundation of his enduring popularity. It's been a long time since an American poet has both been so good at his craft and so successful in reaching so many Americans. Others who managed this rare combination include Allen Ginsburg, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson (though in her lifetime she was all but unpublished, unknown, and unappreciated) .