There's a Poem in My Pocket

As much as I love music and lyrics... poetry is a medium I either enjoy or loathe. No in betweens. No exceptions. I might like a little of Poe and Frost's "The Road Not Taken", but not popular stuff by Silverstein or Whitman's classics. When Poetri and Taylor Mali visted my school to present their works, they were energetic and very entertaining (Fangirl endorces them: look 'em up!). Despite their creative personalities, nothing has changed my mind on such art. Writing rants and essays are hard enough: make me write a poem and prepare for steam and fire shooting out my head.

But I am now a bit less of a Grinch. Today is supposedly National Poem in Your Pocket Day. Poems were passed around the school today, and I received this nice piece (*shock*):

"The Dead"

The Dead are always looking down on us, they say.
While we are putting on our shoes or eating a steak,
They are looking down through the glass bottom boats of heaven
As they row themselves slowly through eternity.

They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
And when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
Drugged perhaps by the hum of a long afternoon,
They think we are looking back at them,
Which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
And wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.
- Billy Collins