THE LIFE OF THE MIND
It might be a blessing
lying here, learning to see
Learning to love even more
what slips away–
philosophy, Latin,
faces caressed by thought,
an early Kandinsky
of a rider in a nightwood.
Here is the problem: how to live on,
muddled and ignominious,
awaiting the return of clarity,
remembering how it felt
to think on your feet,
to get it right, the ball
hitting the fat of the bat.
In dreams you still carry
the person you were,
the way we carry places,
expecting to see them
the first seconds we’re awake.
Now you study the light
in the trees, the bird’s call
like a rusty gate,
silvered night speech
of the aspens, that silence
created by the passage of time.
You will learn to learn, your life
is not what you chose.
Not the life of the mind.
A life of the heart.
by Karen Fiser,
from her book of poems, “Words Like Fate and Pain”
Photo:cevizliekmek
