{"id":5520,"date":"2014-02-25T22:28:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T22:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=5520"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:30:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:30:43","slug":"i-ask-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=5520","title":{"rendered":"I Ask You"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am looking outside at bare tree branches – again. They are still taupe against a pale grey sky; nothing has changed in months. I am tempted to feel sad. No, I mustn’t give in to sadness. I ease back a little from the melancholy and think again. I realize that I haven’t read Billy Collins in a while. He usually dispels the gloom. A google search brought me to www.poemhunter.com<\/a> and this poem.<\/p>\n

\nI Ask You<\/span><\/h4>\n
\n
\n
\nWhat scene would I want to be enveloped in
\nmore than this one,
\nan ordinary night at the kitchen table,
\nfloral wallpaper pressing in,
\nwhite cabinets full of glass,
\nthe telephone silent,
\na pen tilted back in my hand?<\/p>\n

It gives me time to think
\nabout all that is going on outside–
\nleaves gathering in corners,
\nlichen greening the high grey rocks,
\nwhile over the dunes the world sails on,
\nhuge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.<\/p>\n

But beyond this table
\nthere is nothing that I need,
\nnot even a job that would allow me to row to work,
\nor a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
\nwith cracked green leather seats.<\/p>\n

No, it’s all here,
\nthe clear ovals of a glass of water,
\na small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
\nnot to mention the odd snarling fish
\nin a frame on the wall,
\nand the way these three candles–
\neach a different height–
\nare singing in perfect harmony.<\/p>\n

So forgive me
\nif I lower my head now and listen
\nto the short bass candle as he takes a solo
\nwhile my heart
\nthrums under my shirt–
\nfrog at the edge of a pond–
\nand my thoughts fly off to a province
\nmade of one enormous sky
\nand about a million empty branches. <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\nBilly Collins<\/div>\n
\nCosmic forces must be at work, or why else would I have been directed to such a perfect poem for my mood today. Although I don’t have singing candles on the table, I do have a patchwork of today’s newspapers, overseen by a vase of yellow flowers. Make that crate of oranges in the poem, a bag of apples on my kitchen counter and those water glasses, a flower pot waiting to be filled and I am there. My heart might not be a frog at the edge of a pond thumping, but my breath is a wisp of willow waiting for Spring. I think that I will just stay here and wait for Billy, because he said that he was going to fly to a province with one enormous sky and a million empty branches.  We’re over here, Billy!!<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHave an awesome day!!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am looking outside at bare tree branches – again. They are still taupe against a pale grey sky; nothing has changed in months. I am tempted to feel sad. No, I mustn’t give in to sadness. I ease back a little from the melancholy and think again. I realize that I haven’t read Billy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5521,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5520\/revisions\/5521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}