Monday or How Billy Collins taught me it was okay to look out my window . . .

MONDAY by Billy Collins from The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems (Random House)

Jane Austen may not have been a poet but she did
write at this table by the window every morning,
and probably spent some time looking outside.

The birds are in their trees,
the toast is in the toaster,
and the poets are at their windows.

They are at their windows
in every section of the tangerine of earth-
the Chinese poets looking up at the moon,
the American poets gazing out
at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.

The clerks are at their desks,
the miners are down in their mines,
and the poets are looking out their windows
maybe with a cigarette, a cup of tea,
and maybe a flannel shirt or bathrobe is involved.

The proofreaders are playing the ping-pong
game of proofreading,
glancing back and forth from page to page,
the chefs are dicing celery and potatoes,
and the poets are at their windows
because it is their job for which
they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon.

Which window it hardly seems to matter
though many have a favorite,
for there is always something to see-
a bird grasping a thin branch,
the headlights of a taxi rounding a corner,
those two boys in wool caps angling across the street.

The fishermen bob in their boats,
the linemen climb their round poles,
the barbers wait by their mirrors and chairs,
and the poets continue to stare
at the cracked birdbath or a limb knocked down by the wind.

By now, it should go without saying
that what the oven is to the baker
and the berry-stained blouse to the dry cleaner,
so the window is to the poet.

Just think-
before the invention of the window,
the poets would have had to put on a jacket
and a winter hat to go outside
or remain indoors with only a wall to stare at.

And when I say a wall,
I do not mean a wall with striped wallpaper
and a sketch of a cow in a frame.

I mean a cold wall of fieldstones,
the wall of the medieval sonnet,
the original woman's heart of stone,
the stone caught in the throat of her poet-lover.   

My favorite window is the one by my bed that looks out onto the back yard.  I tend to wake up the first time as the milky light of morning pours into dawn, so I get up and look to see what birds are breakfasting there.  The robins of early spring have now been joined by common place birds I think I know the names of but am not quite sure-- are they wrens or are they sparrows?  I recognized the mourning dove when I saw her yesterday.  And the grackles last week.  Occasionally an odd bird turns up that sends me leafing through my Audubon guide.  I'm still awaiting the return of last year's sap sucker who never managed to venture into a tree to be true to his name, but preferred to forage in the grass.   

A view of the wildflower garden from my window

Later in the morning, after a cup of tea and before I move to my desk, I survey the wildflower garden to see what's in bloom.  Again, I'm not a very well informed naturalist.  I don't know the names of all the plants but I can identify the columbines in an array of purples and blues.  They lord over the salvia and foxglove, and I can almost hear them bragging about their abundant blossoms as they sway and swagger in the breeze.  In a few weeks they'll be quieted by the wild echinacea that takes over the garden and then I'll start looking for the goldfinches who land on the stalks, pluck the petals off the flowers and feast on the seeds.

As I pass the window throughout the day I'll look outside some more.  Is that a rabbit or a clump of brown leaves under the forsythia bush on the hill?  Is it going to rain soon or can I sneak outside for a quick walk?  What is that squirrel up to, hunkered down in the hollow of the maple tree?

Before I rearranged my work space, the small table cum desk that barely held my lap top was in front of a big window that looks out into my side yard and my neighbor's back yard.  I used to find myself endlessly sitting and staring out the window when I "should" have been working.  I used to think of this wool gathering as a manifestation of one or more of my character flaws . . . procrastination, laziness, acedia . . . I could go on but I won't.  

Then I read the Billy Collins poem above and realized that looking out of the window is not an avoidance of work, rather it is part of my work as a writer. The practice of seeing, noticing, observing comes before the work of sharpening the pencils or turning on the computer.  Just as a chef has to chop the vegetables for the mis en place, I have to gather the elements I need to create.  The images, colors, sounds, textures that I see out my window may go into what I cook up on the page on any given day, but most importantly the task of looking out the window provides me with the most  important ingredient I feel I can include in my writing:  gratitude.


BTW - How great is that line, "in every section of the tangerine earth"-- perfection!