Draft We have all experienced those memorable moments that send us back in time; a song on the radio, the smell of cookies baking, driving in a car. They make you think of good times past. But Billy Collins' poem, "The Lanyard," is not only a memory of the past, but also a personal insight into the things his mother did for him and what he did in return. The poem begins with the speaker recounting an event that happened the other day. We see him moving around a room with blue walls “slowly ricocheting” from one thing to another (1). He seems to be searching for something, perhaps inspiration for his next poem, as he moves from objects like the typewriter to the piano, from the piano to the bookshelf, and then to an envelope on the ground, and finally to section L of the dictionary. His actions are described as "moving as if under water" and are associated with the blue walls, giving a sense of fluid movement not only to the way he moves, but also to the poem. (3). But it is here, in the dictionary, that we find the word “thong” which sends it back to the past....