Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern. Today's poem is called Love, and it's by Billy Collins. Billy Collins is still living. He's the author of 10 collections of poetry and the editor of Poetry 180, a turning back to poetry, 180 more, extraordinary poems for Every Day, and Bright Wings,

an illustrated anthology of poems about birds. He was Poet Laureate of the U.S. from 2001 to 2003,

and Poet Laureate of New York State from 2004 to 2006. In 2014, he released an anthology of his

collected poems called AIMLESS Love, which I really enjoy.

And this poem comes from that collection.

This is how it goes.

Love by Billy Collins.

The boy at the far end of the train car kept looking behind him as if he were afraid or expecting

someone.

And then she appeared in the glass door of the forward car, and he rose and opened the door

and let her in, and she entered the car carrying a large black case in the unmistakable shape

of a cello.

She looked like an angel with a high forehead and somber eyes, and her hair was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

And because of all that, he seemed a little awkward in his happiness to see her, whereas she was simply there, perfectly existing as a creature with a soft face who played the cello.

And the reason I'm writing this in the back of a manila envelope,

now that they have left the train together, is to tell you that when she turned to lift the large, delicate cello into the overhead rack, I saw him looking up at her, and what she

was doing, the way the eyes of saints are painted when they are looking up at God,

when he's doing something remarkable, something that identifies him as God.

The Christian Science Monitor wrote about Billy Collins poetry, and you can find this in the dusk jacket, but I think it gets

it why people like Billy Collins. They wrote, Billy Collins has earned almost rock star status.

He knows how to write layered, subtly, witty poems that anyone can understand and appreciate,

even those who don't normally

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