Daily Poetry Readings #287: As If To Demonstrate an Eclipse by Billy Collins | Dr Iain McGilchrist |
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Part 287 of a daily series of readings of his favourite poetry by Dr Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary. Today's poem is As If To Demonstrate an Eclipse by Billy Collins.
Please subscribe to this channel to be notified of the next reading. For updates on Iain's upcoming new platform go to https://channelmcgilchrist.com ~ 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. |