On Returning to Writing from a 3-day Hiatus...

Even the best writers get distracted some days:


Returning the Pencil to Its Tray

Everything is fine---
the first bits of sun are on
the yellow flowers behind the low wall,
people in cars are on their way to work,
and I will never have to write again.

Just looking around
will suffice from here on in.

Who said I had to always play
the secretary of the interior?

And I am getting good at being blank,
staring at all the zeroes in the air.

It must have been all the time spent
in the kayak this summer
that brought this out,

the yellow one that went
nicely with the pale blue life jacket---

the sudden, tippy
buoyancy of the launch,
then the exertion, striking
into the wind against the short waves,

but the best was drifting back,
the paddle resting athwart the craft,
and me mindless in the middle of time.

Not even that dark cormorant
perched on the NO WAKE sign,
his narrow head raised
as if he were looking over something,

not even that inquisitive little fellow
could bring me to write another word.

---Billy Collins


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