Billy Collins Quote

I Love You'Early on, I noticed that you always say itto each of your childrenas you are getting off the phone with themjust as you never fail to say itto me whenever we arrive at the end of a call.It's all new to this only child.I never heard my parents say it,at least not on such a regular basis,nor did it ever occur to me to miss it.To say I love you pretty much every daywould have seemed strangely obvious, like saying I'm looking at youwhen you are standing there looking at someone.If my parents had started saying ita lot, I would have started to worry about them.Ofcourse, I always like hearing it from you.That is never a cause for concern.The problem is I now find myself saying it backif only because just saying good-byethen hanging up would make me seem discourteous.But like Bartleby, I would prefer not tosay it so often, would prefer instead to save itfor special occasions, like shouting it out as I leapedinto the red mouth of a volcanowith you standing helplessly on the smoking rim,or while we are desperately clasping handsbefore our plane plunges into the Gulf of Mexico,which are only two of the examples I had in mind,but enough, as it turns out, to make mewant to say it to you now,and what better place than in the final coupletof a poem where, as every student knows, it really counts.