December 4, 2024: "Here and There," Best Poet Friends, Imagination

I spent some time this morning writing with one of my best poet friends.  Now, I didn't write anything of any worth, but it felt good simply to sit in the same room with her and be myself, without having to put on any masks.

Or I didn't do that.

Billy Collins goes sailing--or he doesn't . . . 

Here and There

by: Billy Collins

I feel nothing this morning 

except the low hum of the ego, 

a constant, shameless sound behind the rib cage. 

I even keep forgetting my friend in surgery 

at this very hour. 

In other words, a perfect time to write 

about clouds rolling in after a week of sun 

and a woman beating laundry on a rock 

in front of her house overlooking the sea— 

all of which I am making up— 

the clouds, the house, the woman, even the laundry. 

Or take the lights strung in a harbor 

that I once saw from the bow of a sailboat, 

which seemed unreal at the time and more unreal now. 

Even if I were there again at the ship’s railing 

as I am sitting here in a lawn chair, who would believe it? 

Vast maple tree above me, are you really there? 

and you, open cellar door, 

and you, vast sky with sun and a fading contrail— 

no more real than the pretend city 

where she lies now under the investigating lights, 

an imaginary surgeon busy 

breaking into the vault of her phantom skull.

This whole poem by Collins speaks to the power of the imagination.  Is that maple tree outside my window real, or have I invented it, imbued it with enough detail to make it alive?  Is Collins' friend really having brain surgery, or is Collins just embellishing once more?  And does it really matter?  It's still the truth.

A couple weeks ago, I fell asleep on my living room couch, and I woke up in the middle of night, swearing that I heard someone pounding on the front door of my house.  My puppy even growled at the sound.  I never checked to see if anyone was standing on my front step.  All I did was make sure the inside door to the house was locked.

Imagination is a powerful force.  In the Book of Genesis, God literally speaks everything into being.  He says the word, and suddenly there's light.  Earth.  Heavens.  Land.  Water,  Stars.  Birds.  Fish.  Beasts.  Adam.  Eve.  God writes a poem, coughs breath into it, and the poem becomes as real as the freckle on my left wrist.

So tonight, as a snowstorm rages outside--or doesn't--I'm grateful for my poet friend.  For the bad poems I wrote this morning with her.  They're still sitting in my journal, without any breath in their lungs.

Now, if only Saint Marty could simply say "Let there be happiness in my heart" and feel it fluttering against his ribs like a trapped bird.