My Something

My something
Is not much
But it is a something.

Because His everything
Is everything
To me.

And my something
Is a something
To Him.

If His everything
Allows my something
To be a something,

Then how I must make
Everyone's somethings
My everything.

A Passing Thought

I have been pondering for a long time over how I am to make the most possible use of my life for the good of the world. The scope of the question and its implications is daunting, which makes me tend to shy away from reaching any decisive conclusions. I have read pages upon pages searching for the answer. I live a life that I consider a decent enough back-eddy to keep me while I wait out the answer, before I plunge any farther down the stream to which I am blind. I feel in my yearning heart that my journey is somehow worthy of spectators, when reason scoffs at the suggestion. In the end, I am just another 22-year-old boy, bereft of any noteworthy experience, secretly hoping to one day be one of the men whose life is counted as worthy of being eternally stored between an attractive set of bookends.

Mother's Day

The Lanyard, by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when 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 into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had 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 spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and 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 worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
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.

Consecration

How beautiful the day will be when we are all joined in hands in perfect consecration.  On that day, there will be singing in perfect harmony and children will finally see adults as they see everyone else.  No one will say don’t, or get off, or get out, or stay away.  Everyone will make their meals with the front and back doors open, and it won't matter who made your food yesterday because you’ll be making food for everyone today.

Why does that day have to come later?  Why didn’t it begin this morning?  Maybe it did, and I didn’t know it.  I will go and give myself to my fellow beings, I will serve them thoughtfully and tell them they are important.  I won’t wait for them to tell me that I’m important back.  I will tell everyone that we live in an age where everything is common between us all.  No one will tell us to stay away.  We will be unified.

The Crack

It began with a tap of a rock on the glass
Tossed flippantly up by an unseeing tire
Then knocked off forever into the great grass

The perfect-placed tap turns smoothness to ire
The dot white as froth on transparented black
Grows a sharp tail like a needle-thin fire

Splintering, slithering—straight cutting back
The jolts push it farther and wind pulls it tight
Silently hissing and spreading its track

As fall drops to winter it ever creeps right
Spring’s leap to summer gives length to its tail
Until it lay stretched like a split in the night

Two solid halves are eternally frail

So sturdy a sheet—but now one more small tap
And millions of pieces will fall on my lap

Eavesdropping

As I sat at an empty desk in the library, thinking about what I should write for my creative writing class, my mind touched briefly on dragons and sorcerers and evil villains, but I remembered that fantasy was never my thing.  I listened as the voices behind me discussed “critical numbers” and “the second derivative” and “relative minimum,” and I realized that I want to learn their language.  I imagined being able to speak that language—the things I could describe—things like infinity—

What can I do now to describe infinity?  I can say that infinity is the waterfall that goes off the edge of the earth, and where it falls.  It is the boy off to the side of the classroom that twiddles the pen between his fingers—back and forth, back and forth.  It’s the man coming back into his house from the mailbox, holding the letter from his son, reading and re-reading the name written on the envelope but paying closer attention to the handwriting.

It’s the math tutor that sits behind me that stops speaking that language for just a moment to talk to the student about his future.  He says, “What is your major?”  The student, not native to this country, doesn't have a major.  He’s thinking about business school.  The tutor says, “Let’s get you into business school.”  Then he goes back to talking about “plus or minus” and “critical numbers” and “x.”  

“Don’t erase that,” he says, “Write that down.  Write all that down.”

The Year That Autumn Lasted

I watched last year—
As winter left its icy mark—
And decided for the year to come
That autumn then
Would last

Quero Aprender Seu Falar

Quero aprender seu falar
Pra falar mais como você
Porque fala palavras diferentes
Que ninguém já falou

Quero aprender seu andar
Pra andar mais como você
Porque anda em lugares novos
Onde ninguém já pisou

Quero aprender seu sorrir
Pra sorrir mais com você
Porque sorri com um resplendor
Que nem o sol já brilhou

Quero aprender seu ser
Pra eu ser como você
Porque faz coisas maravilhosas
Que jamais alguém já fez




(Translation:

I want to learn your talk
To talk more like you
Because you say different words
That no one has ever said

I want to learn your walk
To walk more like you
Because you walk in new places
Where no one has ever stepped

I want to learn your smile
To smile more with you
Because you smile with a radiance
That not even the sun has shone

I want to learn your being
For me to be more like you
Because you do wonderful things
That never before has anyone done)

I Remember from the Top of the Stairs

I remember
From the top of the stairs
When I saw you there
Talking to my mother
About the science fair.

I remember
When we went that night
With my hair combed over
And my shoelaces tied
And I saw you from the hallway.

Then the year
The first of middle school
When you played trombone
And I played bassoon
And our moms took turns driving us there.

Then the day
In the afternoon
When I waited at your house
Before your soccer practice
And you showed me your brother's bedroom.

I remember
When you lost your mouse
And your mom was scared
But you were not
And we laughed till our throats were dry.

I remember
The year I didn't grow
But you were three inches taller
And your mother said
I should ask you on a date.

When we sat
At the top of your house
And you talked about
The shapes of the clouds
And I saw your hand was empty.

Then in March
Five weeks from prom
When I made that cake
Then I heard in math
You had just been asked by Daniel.

And the summer 

That I joined the team

And I had to spend

My Saturdays

Lying in the weight room.

Then the spring
During your family trip
When my parents had me sit
In the living room
And they cried when they told me.

I remember
On the fold-up chairs
And you were there
In the hospital room
When we practiced graduation.

I remember
At the flower store
When the words of the nurse
Repeated in my ears
That maybe you could hear me.

As I stood
Just inside of the door
And your mom hugged me
And your dad sadly smiled
And you laid there like an angel.

I remember
When they left the room
And your eyes were closed
And your hand was opened up
And I cried just like a baby.

Then the moment
When I wiped my tears
It was almost silent
Except for footsteps in the hall
And the soft sound of your breathing.

Then the day
It was sunny outside
And my hair was combed
And my black shoes tied
Your face was whiter than the casket.

When they laid
You in the ground
And our faces down
The dirt was soft and brown
And green hills were all around.

As I sit
At the top of my stairs
I remember
What we did those years
And my heart fills up with gratitude.

To The Place Where No One Has Been

There is a certain feel that transcends all that seems lowly and pale.  There is the elevator of the spirit that takes people up to a place where no person on the entire planet has ever before visited, and yet everyone can reach it.  No one has ever been there, and you can make it there every single day—to reach the skies that haven’t been walked, to sit on a star that hasn’t been touched, to walk across a new moon where the snow is freshly-laid and free of any footprints.  You can visit the bear’s den there, where the cubs are gently sleeping and you can go in quietly and sit down, and then lie at their side without them stirring.  You can climb the tallest tree in the forest and the eagles will come down to perch on the neighboring branches, and you can visit their nests and feel the warmth of their eggs.  You can swim to the bottom of the ocean and feel the warmth of the cracks in the earth where the floor is growing, and where the lava is constantly being cooled by the deep, dark blue—where the fishes' eyes glow and the squid are constantly escaping in the clouds of ink that dissipate into the blackness of the deep.

On the Harbor, Off the Bay

With the melting tide
The sun is changing like the reef
Horizon's window shade
Folds and swallows aged belief

September sailed in strong
Flagging signs of good ahead
September soon sailed on
Taking back its goods unsaid

The cunning half-lit moon
Seemed to speak new promises
Until the light of day
Revealed in fact its silences

With its half-born light
I could have sworn I heard it say
The sails it vowed to send
But now I see the light of day

Before nightfall, it's gone
Leaving naught but watery track
As the ship sails on
Reef now dams the passage back


Such white sails that came before
Reflected sweet the moon's soft glow
But while so nice it was to see them
Better it is to see them go