As I wait for my coffee to brew (yes, at 1am), a Billy Collins poem comes to mind (surprised?). So, before I go back to revamping this poorly-written essay on bureacracy bureaucracy and labor unions...I leave you with dear Billy's poem which so accurately describes the essence of the scene in which I inhabit, and expresses how I feel tonight.

except I think that I would come back as a Baylor squirrel.



Pavilion

I sit in the study,
simple walls, complicated design of carpet.
I read a book with a bright red cover.
I write something down

I look up a fact in an encyclopedia
and copy it onto a card,
the lamp burning,
a painting leaning against a chair.

I find a word in a dictionary
and copy it onto the back of an envelope,
the piano heavy in the corner,
the fan turning slowly overhead.

Such is life in this pavilion
of paper and ink
where a cup of tea is cooling,
where the windows darken then fill with light.

But I have had enough of it--
the slope of the paper on the desk,
books on the floor like water lilies,
the jasmine drying out in its pot.

In fact, I am ready to die,
ready to return as something else,
like a brown-and-white dog
with his head always out the car window.

Then maybe, if you were still around,
walking along a street in linen clothes,
a portfolio under your arm,
you would see me go by,

my eyes closed,
wet nose twitching,
my ears blown back,
a kind of smile on my long dark lips.

I have started and stopped writing this post about half a dozen times.

mostly because my thoughts are scattered and somehow inconclusive. [*disclaimer*] But yet, here I am.

This week was not a good one for me. From freakouts about the future to car conundrums to money mismanagement....to just a general sense of being at odds with everything around me. Not to mention a general hopelessness that results from attending Natural World (we did a breakout on world hunger this time). All of this spiraled into a big fat glum that happened on Thursday night, the kind that you don't want to remember, the kind that you don't typically blog about.

But this poem was on my mind all last week, and I've shared it before, not because of the form or diction, but because of this honesty and identification that strikes a chord in me: