Billy Collins

One of my roommates from when I was at BYU sent me a Christmas present this year. She and I haven't spoken on the phone in years, so I was really touched that she sent this to me out of the blue.

She sent me a book of Billy Collins poetry, and while some of it is a little pretentious, I still found a number of poems I loved (I try not to let myself be biased by a little (or a lot) of pretense).

Here is one that you can sense a bit of it in:

Vade Mecum

I want the scissors to be sharp
and the table to be perfectly level
when you cut me out of my life
and paste me in that book you always carry.

but I still like it. And this one I thought was sweet:

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-bottomed boats of heaven
as they row themselves 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.