Billy Collins literally started my love affair with poetry. He's the most easily accessibly, witty, and entertaining contemporary poet out there, in my opinion. In 9th grade, my Governor's School teacher, knowing I dabbled in poetry, gave me a project involving Collin's Poetry 180 , an initiative where 1 hand-selected poem is read in high school English classes each day. I fell in love with Collin's and his humor-- he reminds me of David Sedaris.
This poem is a reference to a famous poem written by Yeats at the turn of the 20th century, when WWI was imminent and the younger generation was prepping for their first experience with death and destruction. Read it here.
Collins wrote this poem at the turn of the 21st century, when there was talk of the Y2K happening, etc. A beautifully written love poem.
Dancing Toward Bethlehem
by Billy Collins
If there is only enough time in the final
minutes of the twentieth century for one last dance
I would like to be dancing it slowly with you,
say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.
My palm would press into the small of your back
as the past hundred years collapsed into a pile
of mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,
just as the floor of the nineteenth century gave way
and disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.
There will be no time to order another drink
or worry about what was never said,
not with the orchestra sliding into the sea
and all our attention devoted to humming
whatever it was they were playing.
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