Cockeyed with Gratitude

Feast on a meditation of gratitude as you listen to the sumptuous voice of Dennis Nice (StarTalk Radio co-host and comedian) while he reads the poem, “As If to Demonstrate an Eclipse". This poem was written by Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins and can be found in Collins' poetry collection Nine Horses.

I hope you'll feel inspired to pick a point in time to be grateful for something today.

Enjoy!

"As If To Demonstrate an Eclipse"

by Billy Collins

I pick an orange from a wicker basket

and place it on the table

to represent the sun.

Then down at the other end

a blue and white marble

becomes the earth

and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.

I get a glass from a cabinet,

open a bottle of wine,

then I sit in a ladder-back chair,

a benevolent god presiding

over a miniature creation myth,

and I begin to sing

a homemade canticle of thanks

for this perfect little arrangement,

for not making the earth too hot or cold

not making it spin too fast or slow

so that the grove of orange trees

and the owl become possible,

not to mention the rolling wave,

the play of clouds, geese in flight,

and the Z of lightning on a dark lake.

Then I fill my glass again

and give thanks for the trout,

the oak, and the yellow feather,

singing the room full of shadows,

as sun and earth and moon

circle one another in their impeccable orbits

and I get more and more cockeyed with gratitude.

The video was recorded for the 2018 Universe in Verse, created and hosted by Maria Popova at Pioneer Works: brainpickings.org/the-universe-in-verse This poem/video is from The Marginalian. If you are not already getting this weekly newsletter by author, Maria Popova, you are being deprived of timeless nourishment for the soul!

https://www.themarginalian.org

This poem's text and context can be found in: brainpickings.org/2020/11/25/billy-collins-as-if-to-demonstrate-an-eclipse.