At a Billy Collins Reading

Billy Collins read his poems
And we all sat there, rapt.
Not everybody has those words
Just waiting to be tapped.

His poetry provides the rungs
So happenings mundane
Can climb a ladder, bringing them
To quite a different plane.

An ordinary thought
Would come to naught in many hands;
Yet Billy Collins molds it
With the magic he commands.

I wonder if the audience
Got sucked into believing
That poems like his are easy –
Their simplicity’s deceiving.

‘Cause anyone who tries to write
Arrives at one conclusion –
What looks to be a breeze
Is often simply an illusion.

I paid attention to his thoughts of flow
And then revision;
It made me realize he would view
My poems with some derision.

Yet one thing struck me as I listened,
Though this may not show it –
Just like Billy Collins,
I can call myself a poet.