JOURNAL by Billy Collins

Ledger of the head's transactions, log of the body's voyage, it rides all day in a raincoat pocket, ready to admit any droplet of thought, nut of a maxim narrowest squint of an observation. It goes with me to a gallery where I open it to record a note on red and the birthplace of Corot, into the tube of an airplane so I can take down the high dictation of clouds, or on a hike in the woods where a young hawk might suddenly fly between its covers. And when my heart is beating too rapidly in the dark, I will go downstairs in a robe, open it up to a blank page and try to settle on the blue lines whatever it is that seems to be the matter. Net I tow beneath the waves of the day, giant ball of string or roil, it holds whatever I uncap my pen to save: a snippet of Catullus, a passage from Camus, a tiny eulogy for the evening anodyne of gin, a note on what the kingfisher looks like when he swims. And there is room in the margins for the pencil to go lazy and daydream in circles and figure eights or produce some illustrations, like Leonardo in his famous codex - room for a flying machine, the action of a funnel, a nest of pulleys, and a device that is turned by water, room for me to draw a few of my own contraptions, inventions so original and visionary that not even I - genius of the new age- have the slightest idea what they are for. Billy Collin's wry and subtle humour pervades this piece, along with his sense of detail.   The stanza that really made me want to learn it was the one beginning, "And when my heart is beating..."  - it spoke volumes to me of the innumerable nights I've woken suddenly in the wee small hours and not been able to get back to sleep.   I get up and write then, too. Return to the Index - Go to the Main Page

roil: 1 a : to make turbid by stirring up the sediment or dregs of b : to stir up : DISTURB, DISORDER
2 : RILE 1 intransitive senses : to move turbulently : be in a state of turbulence or agitation (courtesy of Merriam-Webster)