Every day the body works in the fields of the world 
Mending a stone wall 
Or swinging a sickle through the tall grass- 
The grass of civics, the grass of money- 
And every night the body curls around itself 
And listens for the soft bells of sleep. 

But the heart is restless and rises 
From the body in the middle of the night, 
Leaves the trapezoidal bedroom 
With its thick, pictureless walls 
To sit by herself at the kitchen table 
And heat some milk in a pan. 

And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe 
And goes downstairs, lights a cigarette, 
And opens a book on engineering. 
Even the conscience awakens 
And roams from room to room in the dark, 
Darting away from every mirror like a strange fish. 

And the soul is up on the roof 
In her nightdress, straddling the ridge, 
Singing a song about the wildness of the sea 
Until the first rip of pink appears in the sky. 
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body 
The way a flock of birds settles back into a tree, 

Resuming their daily colloquy, 
Talking to each other or themselves 
Even through the heat of the long afternoons. 
Which is why the body-the house of voices- 
Sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen 
To stare into the distance, 

To listen to all its names being called 
Before bending again to its labor. 



–Billy Collins 

To describe how rain touches morning in Iceland—

because / in the debris / of the past, he has found the sources of the necessities / which have led him to this room, writing