The Chairs That No One Sits In

I read a poem of this title by Billy Collins during the week on the Poetry Foundation facebook page, and I simply liked it. This blog is nowadays functioning rather as an online commonplace book, perhaps not quite so appealing as a physical book, where I deposit ideas and quotes and observations that stoke at the fires. So here is a poem I'd like to keep and share.

The Chairs That No One Sits In

BY BILLY COLLINS

You see them on porches and on lawns 
down by the lakeside, 
usually arranged in pairs implying a couple 

who might sit there and look out 
at the water or the big shade trees. 
The trouble is you never see anyone 

sitting in these forlorn chairs 
though at one time it must have seemed   
a good place to stop and do nothing for a while. 

Sometimes there is a little table 
between the chairs where no one   
is resting a glass or placing a book facedown. 

It might be none of my business, 
but it might be a good idea one day 
for everyone who placed those vacant chairs 

on a veranda or a dock to sit down in them 
for the sake of remembering 
whatever it was they thought deserved 

to be viewed from two chairs   
side by side with a table in between. 
The clouds are high and massive that day. 

The woman looks up from her book. 
The man takes a sip of his drink. 
Then there is nothing but the sound of their looking, 

the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird 
then another, cries of joy or warning— 
it passes the time to wonder which.