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TABLE TALK
by Billy Collins

Not long after we had sat down to dinner
at a long table in a restaurant in Chicago
and were deeply engrossed in the heavy menus,
one of us—a bearded man with a colorful tie—
asked if any one of us had ever considered
applying the paradoxes of Zeno to the martyrdom of St. Sebastian.

The differences between these two figures
were much more striking than the differences
between the Cornish hen and the trout amandine
I was wavering between, so I looked up and closed my menu.

If, the man with the tie continued,
an object moving through space 
will never reach its destination because it is always
limited to cutting the distance to its goal in half,

then it turns out that St. Sebastian did not die
from the wounds inflicted by the arrows.
No, the cause of death was fright at the spectacle of their endless approach.
St. Sebastian, according to Zeno, would have died of a heart attack.

I think I’ll have the trout, I told the waiter,
for it was now my turn to order,
but all through the elegant dinner
I kept thinking of the arrows forever nearing

the pale, quivering flesh of St. Sebastian
a fleet of them perpetually halving the tiny distances
to his body, tied to a post with rope,
even after the archers had packed it in and gone home.

And I thought of the bullet never reaching
the wife of William Burroughs, an apple trembling on her head,
the tossed acid never getting to the face of that girl,
and the Oldsmobile never knocking my dog into a ditch.

The theories of Zeno floated above the table
like thought balloons from the fifth century before Christ,
yet my fork continued to arrive at my mouth
delivering morsels of asparagus and crusted fish,

and after we all talked and ate and lifted our glasses,
we left the restaurant and said goodbye on the street
then walked our separate ways in the world where things do arrive,

where people get where they are going—
where the train pulls into the station in a cloud of vapor,
where geese land with a splash on the surface of the lake,
and the one you love crosses the room and arrives in your arms—

and, yes, where sharp arrows will pierce a torso,
splattering the groin and the bare feet of the saint,
that popular subject of European religious painting.
One hagiographer compared him to a hedgehog bristling with quills.

©2011 by Billy Collins
from the book Horoscopes for the Dead
Random House, NY

"Table Talk," by Billy Collins, Read by David J. Bauman

You Are Not Alone

Turn the Page Acoustic Version

g Waiting for the bathroom to bm heat up
c so I can have a g spruce.

g Sitting at this table in the bm main room
in my c jumper the colour of which is g puce.

It’s d Saturday night in an c English g village
and c no buses am7 run this d late

g It’s Saturday c night, and g I’ve been em7 meditating
on the c state of my am7 life c
and the am7 state d of the g state

TASCAM DR-05

saturday night in an english village

West Of Ireland

How It Ends

A digital sketch created in Sibelius software of Trio for tenor, violin and cello by Bettina Gray based on poem by William Stafford.  First live performance in 2014, La Fortuna, Costa Rica.
Text: 
This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.
Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed – or were killed – on this ground
hallowed by the neglect of an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.

Un-National Monument Digital Sketch

My House

04 Hold Out Your Hand

read by Frances Uku
one of Five Poems by Roberto Bolaño 
::

MY GIFT TO YOU
My gift to you will be an abyss, she said,
but it will be so subtle you’ll perceive it
only after many years have passed
and you are far from Mexico and me.
You’ll find it when you need it most,
and that won’t be the happy ending,
but it will be an instant of emptiness and joy.
And maybe then you’ll remember me,
if only just a little.

:: appears in the summer 2012 issue of The Paris Review 
:: audio produced by Declan May

Roberto Bolaño Ávalos (28 April 1953 – 15 July 2003) was a Chilean writer, author of novels, short-stories, poems, and essays. He has been described by the New York Times as "the most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation."
http://theparisreview.tumblr.com/post/56887306240/my-gift-to-you-will-be-an-abyss-she-said-but-it

My Gift To You by Roberto Bolaño - read by Frances Uku

This activity is a mindful look at the poetry of Seamus Heaney. It will highlight soothing lines and images from the poem, 'Blackberry-Picking' and encourages participants to take some time to find their own mindful moments in this poem.

Mindful Activity-Blackberry-Picking

Poet, father and bone-headed naturalist. 