THE DEAD 

ARE WAITING FOR US 

Poem for Today - March 31, 2014

THE DEAD

The dead are always looking down on us, they say,

while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,

they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven

as they row themselves through eternity.

They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,

and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,

drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,

they think we are looking back at them,

which makes them lifts their oars and fall silent

and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

(c) Billy Collins