by Billy Collins from Horoscopes for the Dead (Random House)
You see them on porches and on
lawns
down by the lakeside,
usually arranged in pairs
implying a couple
who might sit there and look
out
at the water or the big shade
trees.
The trouble is you never see
anyone
sitting in these forlorn
chairs
though at one time it must
have seemed
a good place to stop and do
nothing for a while.
Sometimes there is a little
table
between the chairs where no
one
is resting a glass or placing
a book facedown.
It might be none of my
business,
but it might be a good idea
one day
for everyone who placed those
vacant chairs
on a veranda or a dock to sit
down in them
for the sake of remembering
whatever it was they thought
deserved
to be viewed from two
chairs
side by side with a table in
between.
The clouds are high and
massive that day.
The woman looks up from her
book.
The man takes a sip of his
drink.
Then there is nothing but the
sound of their looking,
the lapping of lake water, and
a call of one bird
then another, cries of joy or
warning—
it passes the time to wonder
which.
Chairs that I don't sit in are leaning against the dogwood tree in the back yard, books I don't read are stacked two deep on shelves, recipes I haven't tried are spilling out of an accordian folder, poems I haven't written are tucked in the corners of my mind.
But today, today is an opportunity to do something that has been left undone . . .
What will you do with the opportunity you have today?
No comments:
Post a Comment