Litany -- Billy Collins

[BC] This is another poem that involves lifting lines, and in this case I took two lines not just out of the middle of the poem but actually took the first two lines of someone else’s poem and essentially re-wrote the poem 
for him (laughter). This is a professional courtesy. I came across this poem in a magazine, it’s a love poem, and it just seemed to suffer from a very outdated theory about how to approach women in poetry that male 
poets were laboring under. The assumption was that what women really wanted more than anything in life was not loyalty, or passion, or fidelity, or respect – they just wanted similes. You know, they just wanted to be 
compared to stuff (continued laughter).  

(Poem #182)Litany       You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine... -Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass and the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, and the marsh birds suddenly in flight. However, you are not the wind in the orchard, the plums on the counter, or the house of cards. And you are certainly not the pine-scented air. There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air. It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge, maybe even the pigeon on the general's head, but you are not even close to being the field of cornflowers at dusk. And a quick look in the mirror will show that you are neither the boots in the corner nor the boat asleep in its boathouse. It might interest you to know, speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world, that I am the sound of rain on the roof. I also happen to be the shooting star, the evening paper blowing down an alley and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table. I am also the moon in the trees and the blind woman's tea cup. But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife. You are still the bread and the knife. You will always be the bread and the knife, not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine. -- Billy Collins