Poetry on Sunday - Horoscopes for the Dead

As my dad has "retired" from his Sunday's spotlight - (thanks Dad for all those blog posts xx) - I thought Sunday could now be my regular day for non-jewelry blog posts (although whilst in Mexico, there may be rather more of these than normal!!).

To start this off, I wanted to share a poem with you that I heard on the radio before we left the US. It is written by Billy Collins. He has just published a book by the same name as the poem "Horoscopes for the Dead".

In his interview on the radio, he said that he, like me, isn't a great reader/believer of horoscopes but when he does stop and read his own in the newspaper, he then goes on to read the horoscopes of other people close to him.......and thus he found that he was actually reading the horoscopes of people who were dear to him, but had actually died....and this is how his poem "horoscopes for the dead" came about!  I love it. Hope you enjoy it too.

Horoscopes For the Dead

Every morning since you fell down on the face of the earth,
I read about you in the newspaper
along with the box scores, the weather, and all the bad news.

Sometimes I am reminded that today
will not be a wildly romantic time for you,
nor will you be challenged by educational goals
nor will you need to be circumspect at the workplace.

Another day, I learn that you will miss
an opportunity to travel and make new friends
though you never cared much about either.

I can’t imagine you ever facing a new problem
with a positive attitude, but you will definitely not
be doing that or anything like that on this weekday in March.
And the same goes for the fun
you might have gotten from group activities,
a likelihood attributed to everyone under your sign.

A dramatic rise in income may be a reason
to treat yourself, but that would apply
more to all the Pisces who are still alive today,
still swimming up and down the stream of life
or suspended in a pool in the shade of an overhanging tree.

But it will come as a relief to learn
that you don’t need to reflect carefully before acting
nor do you have to think more of others,
and never again will creative work take a back seat
to the business responsibilities that you never really had.

And don’t worry today or any other day
about unwanted problems caused by your failure
to interact rationally with your many associates.
No more goals for you, no more pressing matters,
no more money or children, jobs or important tasks,
but then again, you were never thus encumbered.


So leave it to me now
to plan carefully for success and the wealth it brings,
to counsel the dear ones close to my heart
and to welcome any intellectual stimulation that comes my way
though that sounds like a lot to get done on a Tuesday.

I am better off closing the newspaper,
putting on the clothes I wore yesterday
(when I read that your financial prospects were looking up)
then pushing off on my copper-colored bicycle
and pedaling along the road by the shore of the bay.

And you go on being perfect just where you are,
lying there in your beautiful blue suit,
your hands crossed upon your chest
like the wings of a bird who has flown
in its strange migration straight up from earth
and pierced the enormous circle of the zodiac.