Saturday Morning Poem: The Parade

As regards this new custom of Saturday poetry, I still haven't decided whether to say a few introductory words about each poem or just post it up for your reading pleasure, but I'm pretty sure that my readers, at least based on the small sample known to me, are an erudite and somewhat literary bunch for whom a good poem can stand and shine on its own, and thispoem by Billy Collins certainly captures all the sun-flash and dazzle of life, though rendered poignant by recognition of its inevitable passing. See? I've already said more than was needed. But since I'm blabbing anyway, I might as well mention too that Billy Collins, who was U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, is a favorite of mine, and I met him once, and I can't recall whether he spontaneously kissed me on the cheek or I kissed him first, but I was no doubt left breathless and swooning. I am something of a poetry slut, you see. Too much information again? I'm going to shut up and let you enjoy The Parade: 

THE PARADE by Billy Collins

How exhilarating it was to march

along the great boulevards

in the sunflash of trumpets

and under all the waving flags-

the flag of desire, the flag of ambition.

So many of us streaming along-

all of humanity, really-

moving in perfect sync,

yet each lost in the room of a private dream.

How stimulating the scenery of the world,

the rows of roadside trees,

the huge blue sheet of the sky.

How endless it seemed until we veered

off the broad turnpike

into a pasture of high grass,

heading toward the dizzying cliffs of mortality.

Generation after generation,

we shoulder forward

under the play of clouds

until we high-step off the sharp lip into space.

So I should not have to remind you

that little time is given here

to rest on a wayside bench,

to stop and bend to the wildflowers,

or to study a bird on a branch-

Not when the young

keep shoving from behind,

not when the old are tugging us forward,

pulling on our arms with all their feeble strength.