Mmm. Hot chocolate with Kahlua: Mother Nature's answer to a chilly, grey afternoon. I was tempted to go to the gym today just to sit in the sauna and warm up. They're predicting a high of 90 degrees for tomorrow, though. Wow. I was reading Sailing Alone Around the Room the other night and remembered how much I like Billy Collins. You know those statistics they occasionally release saying that 75% of Americans can't name all the continents or whatever? I know it sounds ridiculous, but I would probably get some of those questions wrong, too. For instance, if you asked me who the Federal Reserve Chairman is, I would never be able to think of anyone but Alan Greenspan. Similarly, Billy Collins will forever be the Poet Laureate as far as I'm concerned. I think he's the only Laureate I've ever been aware of.
Here's The Night House:
Every day the body works in the fields of the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging sickle through the tall grass--
the grass of civics, the grass of money--
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.
But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in the pan.
And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.
And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,
resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to each other or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body--that house of voices--
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance,
to listen to all its names being called
before bending again to its labor.
