blueberry muffins and billy collins

this morning has barely stretched its fingers through the clouds. its likely about to rain. which, i confess, is something ive come to love much much more than not having homework in the summer. rainy days. 

i rolled out of bed at 10 and it felt like 6 outside. im not working today--which is exciting. mornings are my favorite time.

but this morning has been extra beautiful because i made blueberry muffins. and with the blueberry muffins, some biscotti flavored coffee. then i snuggled down under my perfect quilt in my silk embroidered kimono, with candles lit all around me and the new wilco humming seamlessly at my feet from my forever-loved but presently dejected laptop, and began my stroll, or sail rather,  around the room with billy collins:

Rooms

After three days of steady, inconsolable rain,

I walk through the rooms of the house

wondering which would be best to die in.

The study is an obvious choice 

with its thick carpet and soothing paint,

its overstuffed chair preferable

to a doll-like tumble down the basement stairs.

And the kitchen has a certain appeal–

it seems he was boiling water for tea,

the inspector will offer, holding up the melted kettle.

Then there is the dining room,

just the place to end up facedown

at one end of it long table in a half-written letter

or the bedroom with its mix of sex and sleep, 

upright against the headboard,

a book having slipped to the floor–

make it Mrs. Dalloway, which I have yet to read.

Dead on the carpet, dead on the tiles, 

dead on the stone cold floor–

it's starting to sound like a ballad

sung in a pub by a man with a coal red face.

It's all the fault of the freezing rain

which is flicking against the windows,

but when it finally lets up

and gives way to broken clouds and a warm breeze,

when the trees stand dripping in the light,

I will quit these dark, angular rooms

and drive along a country road

into the larger rooms of the world,

so vast and speckled, so full of ink and sorrow––

a road that cuts through bare woods

and tangles of red and yellow bittersweet

these late November days.

And maybe under the fallen wayside leaves

there is hidden a nest of mice,

each one no bigger than a thumb,

a thumb with closed eyes,

a thumb with whiskers and a tail,

each one contemplating the sweetness of grass 

and the startling brevity of life. 

Billy Collins, like no other poet I've encountered, has the uncanny ability to stare into a dusty corner, and lovingly uncover a forgotten tango or waltz that once took place there. he unbridles the everyday object, releasing it from its generalized persona, grafting it wings, and making it beautiful. Billy Collins is my roadside flower. whenever I am going too fast, he slows it down, and i notice the tiny pinks and whites poking up out of the weeds on 40 east bound.