Japan

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.


It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.


I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.


I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.


I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.


And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.


It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,


and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.


When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.


When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.


And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,


and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

Billy Collins

Billy Collins is an American poet known for his accessible, conversational style, humor, and ability to transform everyday moments into thoughtful reflections.

Born in 1941 in New York City, Collins served as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001–2003 and as the New York State Poet Laureate from 2004–2006. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, including The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems, Sailing Alone Around the Room, and Aimless Love.

A former professor of English at Lehman College, Collins has received many honors, including the Poetry Foundation's Mark Twain Prize for Humor in Poetry and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His poems often begin with ordinary observations a walk, a room, a book, a memory, and use curiosity and wit to reveal deeper questions about attention, language, and human experience.

Collins’s work invites readers to slow down and notice the world around them, making him one of the most widely read and beloved contemporary poets in the United States.