There are uppity poets who are upset
at Billy Collins for writing
things that they could have but didn’t.

Why live like that, wasting time & energy
casting doubt & stamping
his work with harsh words that

he doesn’t deserve. They could have captured
those moments just as easily,
could have set a tempo with the common

people. But no, nothing happened in their
lives this morning, this afternoon
that they figured worthy of writing down.

His evenings & coffee cups, the way 
a red squirrel packs her nuts 
into a clever hole on the edge of the garden,

the Reaper, the drives along country lanes,
the way silence cuts through
our souls, lanyards & special classes,

flying notebooks & bears, dragonflies
& French toast, the bereft,
boyhood & long days, Mondays &

statues in the park. I could go on forever
like his poetry, chronicles
of mankind’s mundane sprint

to make it to the end, the joy of breathing,
the days of grief & sadness,
the click-click of all that we know.