This coming Saturday/Sunday is the first day of spring (depending on your time zone). In honour of the changing seasons I present “Today” by Billy Collins, who was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. I hope you’ll take a moment to enjoy it.

“Today”

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.

 Publication

“Today” was first published in Poetry magazine in April 2000.

Recording

Here is a recording of Billy Collins reading his poem, if listening to it is your cup of tea.

 

Read more about Billy Collins and his other poems on the Poetry Foundation Website.

Happy Vernal Equinox!