delighted, overwhelmed and mystified

Poetry: a perfect escape into celebrating a slow Sunday afternoon.

Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins

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 rope
and torture a confession out of it.

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

p.s. for the record, this is how I often felt about music in class sadly. And yet, I made it through those many, many hours of classes (and subsequent degrees) into a career in this business, and still that delight has yet to appear most days. Why is this human life so dumb sometimes?

via {cup of jo}