When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses… We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. — John F. Kennedy
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) You are the bread and the knife,The crystal goblet and the wine… —Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife,the crystal goblet and the wine.You are the dew on the morning grassand the burning wheel of the sun.You are the white apron of the baker,and the marsh birds …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,Then Baxter and Calabro,Davis and Eberling, names falling into placeAs droplets fell through the dark.Names …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) The way the dog trots out the front doorevery morningwithout a hat or an umbrella,without any moneyor the keys to her doghousenever fails to fill the saucer of my heartwith milky admiration.Who provides a finer exampleof a life without encumbrance—Thoreau in his curtainless hutwith a single plate, a single …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) I pick an orange from a wicker basketand place it on the tableto represent the sun.Then down at the other enda blue and white marblebecomes the earthand nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.I get a glass from a cabinet,open a bottle of wine,then I sit in …
Continue reading "Billy Collins – As If To Demonstrate An Eclipse"
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) The name of the author is the first to gofollowed obediently by the title, the plot,the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novelwhich suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbordecided to retire to the southern hemisphere of …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) Not long after we had sat down to dinner at a long table in a restaurant in Chicago and were deeply engrossed in the heavy menus, one of us—a bearded man with a colorful tie— asked if any one of us had ever considered applying the paradoxes of Zeno …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) This morning as I walked along the lakeshore, I fell in love with a wren and later in the day with a mouse the cat had dropped under the dining room table. In the shadows of an autumn evening, I fell for a seamstress still at her machine in …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) Early on, I noticed that you always say it to each of your children as you are getting off the phone with them just as you never fail to say it to me whenever we arrive at the end of a call. It’s all new to this only child. …
If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. —Jiddu Krishnamurti
The truest philosophy, is not to long for anything in particular, but to accept everything as it comes, and find out the reason of it coming. — Marie Corelli
...If one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. — May Sarton
The most we can do is to write — intelligently, creatively, evocatively — about what it is like living in the world at this time. — Oliver Sacks
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses... We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. — John F. Kennedy
