Navel Gazage

Already 2008 has been an eventful year.

But today, I won't post about the seriously almost getting seriously lost in the woods, with night seriously approaching.

I won't post about the amazing Shakti experience I had last night and again today at yoga.

I won't post about almost hydroplaning and coming within inches of a guardrail.

I'll instead post this. I am the kind of nerd that asks for books of poetry for Christmas. And this year I got a compilation of poems by Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate and oft heard on Prairie Home Companion. And this piece makes me very, very happy. Without further ado:

On Not Finding You at Home

Usually you appear at the front door
when you hear my steps on the gravel,
but today the door was closed,
not a wisp of pale smoke from the chimney.

I peered into a window
but there was nothing but a table with a comb,
some yellow flowers in a glass of water
and dark shadows in the corners of the room.

I stood for a while under the big tree
and listened to the wind and the birds,
your wind and your birds,
you dark green woods beyond the clearing.

This is not what it is like to be you.
I realised as a few of your magnificent clouds
flew over the rooftop.
It is just me thinking about being you.

And before I headed back down the hill,
I walked in a circle around your house,
making an invisible line
which you would have to cross before dark.