I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey's Version of "Three Blind Mice"
And I start wondering how they came to be blind.
If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.
Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?
If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,
how did they ever manage to find one another?
Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse
to locate even one fellow mouse with vision
let alone two other blind ones?
And how, in their tiny darkness,
could they possibly have run after a farmer's wife
or anyone else's wife for that matter?
Not to mention why.
Just so she could cut off their tails
with a carving knife, is the cynic's answer,
but the thought of them without eyes
and now without tails to trail through the moist grass
or slip around the corner of a baseboard
has the cynic who always lounges within me
up off his couch and at the window
trying to hid the rising softness that he feels.
By now I am on to dicing an onion
which might account for the wet stinging
in my own eyes, tough Freddie Hubbard's
mournful trumpet on "Blue Moon,"
which happens to be the next cut,
cannot be said to be making matters any better.
The Lanyard
The other day
as I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the “L” section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word
“Lanyard”.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past.
A past where I sat at a workbench
at a camp by a deep Adarondac lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard,
a gift for my mother.
I have never seen anyone use a lanyard,
or wear one,
if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand
again and again
until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard
for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face cloths on my forehead,
then led me out into the airy light and taught me to walk and swim,
and I in turn presented her with a lanyard.
“Here are thousands of meals,” she said,
“and here is clothing and a good education.”
“And here is your lanyard,” I replied,
“which I made with a little help from a counselor.
“Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones, and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world,” she whispered
“And here,” I said, “is the lanyard I made at camp.”
And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift.
Not the archaic truth that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission
that when she took the two-toned lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom
would be enough to make us even.
“Flock”
It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenburg Bible required the skins of 300 sheep.
I can see them
squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed.
All of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike
it would be nearly impossible to count them.
And there is no telling which one of them
will carry the news
that the Lord is a Shepherd,
one of the few things
they already know.
Only last night I searched the poetry section of a Barnes and Noble hoping to find The Lanyard and Flock in print. I had heard Billy Collins read them on the radio. Many thanks for posting them on this site.
Posted by: Irma at January 3, 2004 01:23 AMHow refreshing it is to have stumbled so puposefully upon this page, only moments after googling the words "Lanyard Collins." If only I could harness the power of the great googly moogly to retrieve next weeks Lotto numbers. You would be the first to know, of course, as my mothers shouting and dancing would be heard throughout the world. The joy of a screaming mother who's son just kissed her hand and placed in it a lanyard, with the keys to her dream home in the country attached...
Posted by: Odatria at January 30, 2004 02:31 PMthanks. do you know if "the lanyard" is included in any of the published books of billy collins?
Posted by: jeanne beall at January 31, 2004 11:31 AM"The Lanyard" isn't yet published in a Billy Collins book, more's the pity. Maybe in the next collection, if we're lucky and all pray for his health and stamina. It's cool to see so many Collins freaks out and about.
Posted by: Glo at March 26, 2004 11:15 AMP.S. - Does anybody know if "The Flock" is in a Collins book yet? I have all his books but The Apple That Astonished Paris, which I can't find a copy of. Does anybody know where I can get one? He's going to read in my city on 4/4/4, and I can hardly wait. Spring and Billy too -- oh my!
Posted by: Glo at March 26, 2004 11:19 AMI heard Billy Collins speak recently and I have been trying to find one of his poems that he read about a dog-only the dog is dead, and the dog begins by saying something along the lines of "I never liked you, or your friends or the stupid sweater you made me wear.. and then the last lines have something to do with the dog being in heaven..it's very funny and I can't find it in any of Collins' books. Thanks.
Posted by: rosemary at April 21, 2004 06:25 PMI heard Billy Collins speak last night, and he read the dog poem you are referring to. I, too, have been searching for it in books and online today. I think it may be titled "The Revenant," but can't find the text. Anyone?
Posted by: steve at May 1, 2004 05:42 PMI would like to find the Revenant as well but have had no luck. I heard it on Georgia Public Radio the other day.
Posted by: jodie at May 5, 2004 07:49 AMRe Billy Collins,I also, heard him on NPR and was delighted to hear The lanyard and "the dog who died" poem. Thanks for posting these two.
Posted by: Glenna Auxier at May 7, 2004 08:18 AMI too have been searching for "The Revenant" or "the dog that died" but can't even find the name of the NPR program on which he read the poem. Does anyone know if that program has been recorded or if the poem has been published?
(The Lanyard and The Flock can be heard here:
http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=1091)
I've been looking for "The Flock" in print, too. Anyone know if it's out there?
Posted by: Richard S. Smith at June 22, 2004 01:20 PMI've been trying to locate the Revenant in print as well. Although Collins has been on Garrison Keillor's 'Prairie Home Companion' more than a couple of times, in this case that poem was read as part of an NPR 'City Arts and Lectures' program, less than a year ago.
Posted by: mab at July 15, 2004 05:11 PMWhen I first heard "The Lanyard" I imediatly remembered making one at camp; I guess it was about 65 years ago and I also remembered the gym teacher at school wearing one with a whistle on the end. So I proceeded to look for a kit at my local craft store; it took three tries to find one but luckily for me they also had one ready made that I could buy. I did and gave it to no not my mother but to my arthritis water class teacher. She was elated to receive it and uses it daily. My thanks to Billy Colins for the two gifts, the poem and the begining of a new hobby, POETRY!! YEA.
BILLY CRONK
Posted by: bill cronk at September 5, 2004 10:57 AMHey-
I found a site that posts The Flock and The Lanyard. Revenant is on its way too. The site is www.bestcigarette/us/2004/09 Give it a shot and good luck!
Posted by: Liese Niedermayer at October 22, 2004 07:01 PMI heard Billy Collins read "The Revenant" (aka "The Dog Poem") a few weeks ago. As far as I can tell, it's not published anywhere yet.
Posted by: jon at November 1, 2004 03:42 PM