PTSW: Introduction to Poetry

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy looking under the hood and kicking the tires, admiring the styling and color and detail.

I like knowing the history of the make and the influences that affected the designer.

But mostly I want to slide behind its wheel and cruise down the river road on this warm late April evening with the top down and Sheila nestled against my shoulder.

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

by Billy Colllins, "The Apple That Astonished Parts"