The Lanyard Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDAEFGHIEJEKLJMEBN OPEOQRQSEQTUJVAWQ| The other day as I was ricocheting slowly | A |
| off the blue walls of this room | B |
| bouncing from typewriter to piano | C |
| from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor | D |
| I found myself in the 'L' section of the dictionary | A |
| where my eyes fell upon the word Lanyard | E |
| No cookie nibbled by a French novelist | F |
| could send one more suddenly into the past | G |
| A past where I sat at a workbench | H |
| at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake | I |
| learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard | E |
| A gift for my mother | J |
| I had never seen anyone use a lanyard | E |
| Or wear one if that's what you did with them | K |
| But that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand | L |
| again and again until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard for my mother | J |
| She gave me life and milk from her breasts | M |
| and I gave her a lanyard | E |
| She nursed me in many a sick room | B |
| lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips | N |
| set cold facecloths on my forehead | O |
| then led me out into the airy light | P |
| and taught me to walk and swim and I in turn presented her with a lanyard | E |
| 'Here are thousands of meals' she said | O |
| 'and here is clothing and a good education ' | Q |
| 'And here is your lanyard ' I replied | R |
| 'which I made with a little help from a counselor ' | Q |
| 'Here is a breathing body and a beating heart | S |
| strong legs bones and teeth and two clear eyes to read the world ' she whispered | E |
| 'And here ' I said 'is the lanyard I made at camp ' | Q |
| 'And here ' I wish to say to her now | T |
| 'is a smaller gift Not the archaic truth | U |
| that you can never repay your mother | J |
| but the rueful admission that when she took the two toned lanyard from my hands | V |
| I was as sure as a boy could be | A |
| that this useless worthless thing I wove out of boredom | W |
| would be enough to make us even ' | Q |
Billy Collins
(1)
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