Billy Collins quote

This poem, called “I Go Back To The House For A Book,” reminds me of all the times I’ve imagined going somewhere, doing something, seeing someplace ELSE, while I was busy going, doing, and being somewhere already.  Life is full of so many threads, and sometimes lots of them seem interesting but you have to choose one, at least until they invent cloning.

I turn around on the gravel and go back to the house for a book, something to read at the doctor’s office, and while I am inside, running the finger of inquisition along a shelf, another me that did not bother to go back to the house for a book heads out on his own, rolls down the driveway, and swings left toward town, a ghost in his ghost car, another knot in the string of time, a good three minutes ahead of me — a spacing that will now continue for the rest of my life. 

– Billy Collins