Old Man Eating Alone in a Chinese Restaurant
by Billy Collins
I am glad I resisted the temptation,
if it was a temptation
when I was young,
to write a poem about an old man
eating alone at a corner table in a Chinese restaurant.
I would have gotten it all wrong
thinking: the poor bastard, not a friend in the world
and with only a book for a companion.
He’ll probably pay the bill out of a change purse.
So glad I waited all these decades
to record how hot and sour the hot and sour
soup is here at Chang’s this afternoon
and how cold the Chinese beer in a frosted glass.
And my book — José Saramago’s Blindness
as it turns out — is so absorbing that I look up
from its escalating horrors only
when I am stunned by one of his gleaming sentences.
And I should mention the light
that falls through the big windows this time of day
italicizing everything it touches—
the plates and teapots, the immaculate tablecloths,
as well as the soft brown hair of the waitress
in the white blouse and short black skirt,
the one who is smiling now as she bears a cup of rice
and shredded beef with garlic
to my favorite table in the corner.
Posted by Larry Lawrence on January 4, 2012 at 4:14 pm
Almost Yeatesean: “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” (among School Children)
I need to live with it a while.
I have been meaning to ask, ‘Do you know “Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens?’
Posted by Larry Lawrence on January 5, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Re-reading makes me realize that the subject of the poem is not the subject of the poem. Hows that for Zen? Or maybe something from the Gospel of Thomas?
Posted by pattidavis on January 6, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Or that the author of the poem has become the subject of the poem, revealing that we are all actually much more like each other than we would like to think — and what is it like to sit in two different perspectives at once?
Posted by Larry Lawrence on January 6, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Right! I’d not seen it.