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I Ask You

 What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside--
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.
But beyond this table there is nothing that I need, not even a job that would allow me to row to work, or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4 with cracked green leather seats.
No, it's all here, the clear ovals of a glass of water, a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin, not to mention the odd snarling fish in a frame on the wall, and the way these three candles-- each a different height-- are singing in perfect harmony.
So forgive me if I lower my head now and listen to the short bass candle as he takes a solo while my heart thrums under my shirt-- frog at the edge of a pond-- and my thoughts fly off to a province made of one enormous sky and about a million empty branches.

Poem by Billy Collins
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