exhale all the woes of the day

It's very peaceful pissing under the stars 

or beneath the
mild colors of twilight, 

so refreshing to take a deep breath outdoors 

then exhale all the woes of the day 

and even the longer woes and thorns
of the year. 

Such a calm descends like a calm descending 

as you piss
from a dock into a wavy lake 

and think about your many brethren, 

spread
out across the land, pissing tonight 

against a tree beyond the circle of
a campsite 

or watering a flowering bush at a corner of a lawn, 

some
brothers holding a drink in one hand 

others content to gaze up at the
passing clouds 

then down at the pissing still going on 

then up again as
if there were all the time in the world. 

It's a form of meditation
only without the ashram, 

and it's no exaggeration to say that in
doing this 

you are doing what you were designed to do, 

pissing away into
a dark hedge, 

just as the clouds above you are doing 

what they were made
to do, being nudged by a westerly 

        wind. 

Brother, you being yourself now 

just as the moon is perfectly being itself 

spreading its soft radiance
throughout the sky 

and lighting your way back through the garden 

and
across the lawn to the party you left 

where everyone is hooting and
shouting 

over that song you love that's playing so loud. 

 

[Billy Collins {1941- } 'Under the Stars', from The Rain in Portugal]