☀️ The Daily Boost #828
Atop the ladder
DAYS
Billy Collins
Each one is a gift, no doubt,
mysteriously placed in your waking hand
or set upon your forehead
moments before you open your eyes.
Today begins cold and bright,
the ground heavy with snow
and the thick masonry of ice,
the sun glinting off the turrets of clouds.
Through the calm eye of the window
everything is in its place
but so precariously
this day might be resting somehow
on the one before it,
all the days of the past stacked high
like the impossible tower of dishes
entertainers used to build on stage.
No wonder you find yourself
perched on the top of a tall ladder
hoping to add one more.
Just another Wednesday
you whisper,
then holding your breath,
place this cup on yesterday’s saucer
without the slightest clink.
(My thanks to Billy Collins, via Heart Poems.)
The Gentle Nudge
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Hurricane Helene is passing by today.
Not just another Thursday! There might be some clinking going on.
And yet...grateful for another day 🙏
I’m struck by how well he uses the second person. I’m wary of it, for fear of being instructive or losing the immediacy of the experience. But he uses it in a way that starts with himself and then includes us. Intimate without being invasive.