For no good reason, I’ve been moaning and groaning, feeling sorry for myself, and generally having an off day.   Nothing like a little Billy Collins to bring me out of my funk…

Despair

So much gloom and doubt in our poetry/flowers wilting on the table,/the self regarding itself in a watery mirror.

Dead leaves cover the ground,/the wind moans in the chimney,/and the tendrils of the yew tree inch toward the coffin

I wonder what the ancient Chinese poets/would make of all this/these shadows and empty cupboards?

Today, with the sun blazing in the trees,/my thoughts turn to the great/tenth-century celebrator of experience,

Wa-Hoo, whose delight in the smallest things/could hardly be restrained,/and to his joyous counterpart in the western provinces,/Ye-Hah.