Palavras lidas #394

On Rhyme
by Billy Collins

It is possible that a stitch in time
might have as many as twelve or as few as three,
and I have no trouble remembering
that September has thirty days.
So do June, November, and April.

I like a cat wearing a chapeau or a trilby,
Little Jack Horner sitting on a sofa,
old men who are not from Nantucket,
and how life can seem almost unreal
when you are gently rowing a boat down a stream. 

That's why instead of recalling today
that it pours mostly in Spain,
I am going to picture rain in Portugal,
how it falls on the hillside vineyards,
on the surface of the deep harbors

where fishing boats are swaying, 
and in the narrow alleys of the cities, 
where three boys in tee shirts
are kicking a soccer ball in the rain,
ignoring the window-cries of their mothers.

The Rain in Portugal - Poems, New York: Random House, 2016, pp. 41