The Blue

The Blue

You can have Egypt and Nantucket.

The only place I want to visit is The Blue,

not the Wild Blue Yonder that seduces pilots,

but that zone where the unexpected dwells,

waiting to come out of it in the shape of bolts.

I want to walk its azure perimeter

where the unanticipated is coiled, on the mark,

ready to spring into the predicitable homes of earth.

I want to stroll through the pale indigo light

examining all the accidents about to rocket into time,

all the forgotten names about to fly from tongues.

I will scrutinize all the surprises of the future

and watch the brainstorms gathering darkly,

ready to hit the heads of inventors

laboring in their crackpot shacks.

A jaded traveler with an invisible passport,

I am at home with this heaven of the unforeseen,

waiting for the next whoosh of sudden departure

when, with no advance warning, to tiny augery,

the unpredictable plummets into our lives

from somewhere that looks like sky.

~ Billy Collins ~

(The Apple That Astonished Paris)


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