by Billy Collins from Nine Horses (Random House)
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
I realize it isn't officially spring yet, but the landscape in the mid-Atlantic doesn't seem to realize that. Although it's still too early for peonies, the garden is bursting with flashes of yellow-- forsythia, daffodils, crocuses, jonquils. The cherry blossoms up the street are just starting to open, magnolias are in full bloom, and red buds paint purple splashes among the dark bare oak trees in the woods. Today is a day for releasing myself to revel in its splendor. Maybe I'll walk the labyrinth at Brookside Gardens. Or convince a friend whom I'm meeting for coffee this afternoon that we should get it to go,and take a stroll through my favorite tiny park in Kensington. Perhaps I'll just have my morning tea on the front porch and sit and watch the traffic and people pass by while pretending to be engrossed in a book. Today is full of so many possibilities . . .
How are you going to release yourself to make the most of it?
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