Poetry Saturday

A few days ago a friend told me she was watching PBS and "there was this GUY reading POETRY and it was about a LANYARD and I can't remember anything else about it, just that it was about a LANYARD and I knew you would LOVE IT."

I looked it up. And she was right, I do love it.

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Comments

[Shelby]

Awww. I'm all misty! Thanks for sharing this.

[Christina]

Oh my gosh, I LOVE this poem! And now I feel this driving need to send it to my mom... and every other "mom" I know. Surely that's the sign of a Truly Great Poem, no? :)

[Brittany]

Isn't that great poem? Billy Collins frequently surprises me and I don't know why I'm surprised.

[Kate P]

He's a former U.S. poet laureate--probably underappreciated at the time. Thank you (and your friend) for sharing one of his poems!

[Beth]

Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets - I got to see him in person once and that was very cool! I was just rereading one of his poems the other day that always makes me laughI entitled "Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House"