It was the annual Bayou Art Walk. Artists, musicians, and writers set up booths throughout the bayou to hawk their wares. I was there to pass out poetry and talk to a lot of really lovely individuals. It's amazing to me how people get so excited about the gift of poetry. I had a box of poetry collections and journals, and every person who walked by got to choose a book and/or haiku postcard. Some grabbed several postcards. A few took two and three books. High school and college students. Seniors. Twenty-, 30-, and 40-somethings.
Nobody was in a hurry. Time sort stood still in that green, green place.
But Billy Collins has no time at all . . .
No Time
by: Billy Collins
I tap the horn as I speed past the cemetery
where my parents are buried
side by side beneath a slab of smooth granite.
Then, all day, I think of him rising up
to give me that look
of knowing disapproval
while my mother calmly tells him to lie back down.
My relationship with time has always been a love/hate one. I love that most of my days are boiling over with activity, but I hate how exhausted and peopled-out I get most nights. I love teaching and poeming and hosting library events, but I hate grading papers and submitting poems and being hyper self-conscious. I enjoy friends and family and audiences, but I crave solitude.
Most of all, I wish I had more times like today when I'm not obsessively aware of passing seconds, minutes, and hours. I want to be unhurried, peaceful. I guess what I'm saying is that I wish I could spend more time in a swamp where frogs gobble schedules like mosquitoes or flies.
Saint Marty just needs to sit on a lily pad, strum a banjo, and sing "The Rainbow Connection." Find his inner Kermit.
