Billy Collins Poem by Garnet Robbie

Things all changed
when Billy Collins
walked across the Atlantic.

Nothing would
ever be the same,
at least, not in my small world.

The turtles
must still be able
to tell you all about it.

I wonder,
did he always know
that I would make my reply?

Then again,
that might have been him,
in Shenzhen, asking for change.

The one who
showed his empty purse
made of soft, heavy cotton.

He could have
been from Ireland,
though the accent wasn't there.

Or he was
the Chilcote man
who fed me fish from his hand.

Though neither
poet nor Irish,
still, it could have been a trick.

There was that
Rimouskiite, Jean-Yves,
who told me to straighten up.

While he did
make poetic verse,
he had no pens, only sticks.

Now again,
Collins crossed the sea:
I'll have to stop and think.

Requiring,
some reflection on,
how much turtles remember.

And, is there
some connection with
the warp and woof of being?