Mind

This is a poem in the works...a longer poetic project I want to take up because I am always boggled and amazed and awed by this idea. My motivation and inspiration stems from Gilbert Highet, the most amazing literary figure I have read to date. This same idea comes up in his book I have recently finished "Man's Unconquerable Mind".

Three pounds

an enclosed fist

containing a universal understanding.

Three small pounds, three million facts

of your life. and his life. and her life.

and past lives. and future lives. and everyones' lives.

three measly pounds

able to understand their own minutity,

comprehend its own abstract in physicality.

convulsions of pink, containing numbers, letters, sounds, symbols, dialects, paintings.

containing emotions: you have felt awe. happiness. liberty. relief. sadness. madness. disgust. sublimity. humbleness. pride. jealousy.

you have encountered great pieces of work made by some other mind and comprehend, understood, appreciated by yours.

you have thoughts. habits. memories. the glories of the past and the predicaments of the future.

of your future. of your child's future. of your generations future. of your humanity's future. of you planet's future. of your universe's future.

you understand the abstract. the theories. the physics and the metaphysics. the math and the time and the space. you do not know but you do understand.

you know. you know the places. you've seen the maps. you've worked and walked your legs. you've played the piano and the guitar with your little hands. you've smiled and frowned and have shed tears from your eyes. you have felt love. you have felt hate. you do not know what is love and what is hate, but you have felt it. realized it. submit to it. relived in it for so many times. you remember your first love and you smile at the remembrance of your first kiss. you cry at the character's death in that book and this movie.

you can relate. you do relate. you stand up together you talk together you fight together you laugh cry scream join together.

you know how to work this keyboard. how to drive the car. how to wash the dishes and how to work at your job.

you appreciate diversity. understand religions, the histories, the philosophies, the tragedies and comedies. the astrologies and astronomies.

Ahh the astronomies. you understand the small create that you are in this gigantic, mysterious galaxy. forget the universe, understanding the galaxy is good enough for now. you are fulfilled and yet long for the next facts coming out of the stars, the planets, the solar systems, our universe, the next universe. the colours and the gases and the jets and neutrinos and dark matter and darker energy and the three second cosmic and the biggest of the bangs.

you smell that perfume and it always reminds you of your past boyfriend. you past girlfriend. your happy-sad past.

you eat that ice cream and you automatically feel happy. you go to a park and you feel relaxed. you pet your pet and you feel joy.

you take in seven facts in your short term memory and hide hundreds of facts in your long term memory. forget your life long memory that is even more sublime.

you swim and you jump and you skip and sprint. you produce more like you and help them grow.

you teach what you learn and you learn what you teach. and you never stop teaching and never ever stop learning.

you know beauty you know art you know history you know legend you know blue and you know green. you probably also know that black is not a colour.

you desire me and you desire you. you desire travel and you desire stress. you desire peace and you desire strength.

you understand patterns and you understand themes. you understand styles and forms and formations and art and painting and poetry and words and music and cinema and languages and computers and i-phones and emotions. what dont you understand?

you remember the echo of the first 'i love you' and the last laugh of your friend before death. you understand death, moving away, moving along, making space, having fear and having hope, having questions that need answering. leaving beauty to pursue more beauty or pursue a hellish course. you probably know your future after death.

you know appreciation and you know acknowledgment. you know worth and you should know your own worth. you think all the time even when you're asleep. dreams are just your thoughts when you sleep.

you can change your life just by your thoughts. you can change your emotions just by your thoughts. you are perfect and imperfect, strong and weak, beautiful and ugly, full of life and full of fear. and constantly thinking.

working that three pounds of your like a machine. using it every day of every night and every second of your life.

and because of all this: you are special. you are strong magnificent courageous and a thoughtful man. you are a thinking man.

Hmmmm....Kind of turned into a Walt Whitmanesque kind of optimistic poem. But it's true. Man is so amazing just by his thoughts and he doesn't even realize it. This work will be edited and revised and hopefully, one day published and appreciated. InshaAllah :)

April 15 2009 @ 2.34 AM

~Shaista K