Poem

They said the mind is an ocean,

but sometimes my mind is a pond

circular, shady,

obscure and surrounding the pond,

scrub oak, poison ivy, inedible

low hanging berries,

and twined with the berries, catbrier;

pond where I once swam to a raft

and climbed on, sun drying,

warming my young skin, boys—

that century.

They said the mind or they said something else—

another metaphor: metaphor,

the very liquid glue that helped the worlds—

tangible, solid and, oh, metaphysical—make sense;

and now, fearsome beings in the thick dark water,

but what?—snapping turtles, leeches,

creatures that sting …

Who were they to say such a thing?

—Or do I have that wrong?

The mind an ocean glorious infinite salty

teeming with syllables,

their tendrils filtered by greeny light?

They don't always get it right, do they?

No, it is an unenchanting thing,

the mind: unmusical, small

a dangerous hole, and stagnant,

murk and leaf-muck at the bottom,

mind an idea of idea-making,

idea of place, place to swim home to—

No, to swim away from, to drown, no, to float—

• © The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. All rights reserved. For permissions please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org