For Billy

TO THE POET BILLY COLLINS

On the page of your poems I see

prodding your dog to do something amusing,

chasing a girl in Paris, one of those women in a Matisse painting

or walking along some dusty Southern road counting the lawn chairs

in each home, pairs of lonely sentinels made for summer rest

that will not come to those chairs, those lives.

I see you standing on your porch watching the moon rise

while you number the stars, you number the times your dog,

here he is again, our hero, shuffles to let you know he is ready

for a midnight walk round the neighborhood with all those trees for marking.

Line after line I hear you singing old 70’s classic love ballads

or lounging in your French bath tub writing poems to your mistress

called creativity, maybe I can learn from your words

learn to notice something unusual, to write with humor

with the realness of an angel from heaven dropped suddenly upon this earth,