[Thespiritexpress] Aimless Love - Billy Collins

[Toni Bernbaum]

Here is the poem I read at our group Tuesday.
May you fall hopelessly in love with your soap dish….
and who ever you see in the mirror!❤️

> 
> 
> Aimless Love
> 
> This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
> I fell in love with a wren
> and later in the day with a mouse
> the cat had dropped under the dining table.
> 
> In the shadows of an autumn evening,
> I fell for a seamstress
> still at her machine in the tailor's window,
> and later for a bowl of broth,
> steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.
> 
> This is the best kind of love, I thought,
> without recompense, without gifts,
> or unkind words, without suspicion,
> or silence on the telephone.
> 
> The love of the chestnut,
> the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.
> 
> No lust, no slam of the door --
> the love of the miniature orange tree,
> the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
> the highway that cuts across Florida.
> 
> No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor --
> just a twinge every now and then
> 
> for the wren who had built her nest
> on a low branch overhanging the water
> and for the dead mouse,
> still dressed in its light brown suit.
> 
> But my heart is always propped up
> in a field on its tripod,
> ready for the next arrow.
> 
> After I carried the mouse by the tail
> to a pile of leaves in the woods,
> I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
> gazing down affectionately at the soap,
> 
> so patient and soluble,
> so at home in its pale green soap dish.
> I could feel myself falling again
> as I felt its turning in my wet hands
> and caught the scent of lavender and stone.
> 
> 
> 	- Billy Collins
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