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Saturday, March 7, 2026

Poetry Sunday: Today by Billy Collins

It isn't quite spring yet but today (Saturday) was just the kind of day that Billy Collins wrote about in this poem. Let's hope we have a few more of them before our long, hot summer sets in.

Today 

by Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

9 comments:

  1. I love the stanza about freeing the snowglobe inhabitants and them stepping into the world. Anyone living in my climate can identify with this.

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  2. I did a little research on Billy Collins and discovered that he taught at the college I went to when I was enrolled there. Maybe I even passed him walking to a class, but I never took one of his courses. My loss!

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    1. That is interesting and too bad that you didn't take one of his classes. You could have reported back to us!

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  3. Oh, yes, such a day is a gift.

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    1. And the beautiful day from yesterday is followed by a gray, gloomy day today which is another kind of gift.

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  4. I love March days when the sky is blue, the sun is out and a cool breeze is blowing...I like to call them kite-flying days. Great poem. :D

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  5. And yesterday was that kind of day here. Warm, sunny, snow melting everywhere, sap buckets on the maple trees, and the first Killdeer and Red-winged Blackbirds of the season. Robins were everywhere. The kind of day we all live for.

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    1. Sounds just about perfect. March is unpredictable here. We never know if we are going to wake up to bright and sunny or gray and foggy. Today it's gray and foggy.

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