Billy Collins Contemplates a Flannel

BILLY COLLINS CONTEMPLATES A FLANNEL SHEET Here are 30 sheep, wooly rams perhaps, and solitary five-point stars, little yellow crescent moons and cartoon clouds, fluffy like the wooly sheep who count the stars while I'm asleep. I'll yawn and nod and wake at dawn to find the rams knee-deep in lawn as blue as sky, and wonder why they do not move or run or play, but on this flannel sheet they stay as still as ink. And yet, I think it's possible that in the night they ran and played and jumped the moon and chased the stars-- but now they're frozen here, as each ignores the rest. A dozen clouds or more are still-- no breeze nor wind--the pasted stars each in their place just as the night before, when I slid underneath this sheet repeating sheepish bleat. Written for CONTEMPLATION Poetry Contest Sponsored by Craig Cornish Won Podium Placement 6