my life

by billy collins from picnic, lightning

sometimes i see it as a straight line
drawn with a pencil and a ruler
transecting the circle of the world

or as a finger piercing
a smoke ring, casual, inquisitive,

but then the sun will come out
or the phone will ring
and i will cease to wonder

if it is one thing,
a large ball of air and memory,
or many things,
a string of small farming towns,
a dark road winding through them.

let us say it is a field
i have been hoeing every day,
hoeing and singing,
then going to sleep in one of its furrows,

or now that it is more than half over,
a partially open door,
rain dripping from the eaves.

like yours, it could be anything,
a nest with one egg,
a hallway that leads to a thousand rooms-
whatever happens to float into view
when i close my eyes

or look out a window
for more than a few minutes,
so that some days i think
it must be everything and nothing at once.

but this morning, sitting up in bed,
wearing my black sweater and my glasses,
the curtains drawn and the windows up,

i am a lake, my poem is an empty boat,
and my life is the breeze that blows
through the whole scene

stirring everything it touches-
the surface of the water, the limp sail,
even the heavy, leafy trees along the shore.