Gregory O'Brien
Ode to Thought
Each was handed a toy yacht. Each was
destined for the windward end
of the pond. Such was
the thinking, thought being
the boat that sets the lake in motion, the child running
around the perimeter.
There to sail. And so
each learns to amend or adjust his
waterish ways—in the morning park
where even the youngest head is polished
by thought, as indeed the eyes are
by what they have seen
and what they have
never seen. It is thinking which leads us
by Ferris wheel or chariot,
paternoster or by way
of the Temple of Higher Thought back
to the inscribed ceiling
inside the head, the spiral staircase
down which each thought
clambers. Glamorous, seasonal,
holding the light to best
advantage, the human head
might at once appear fruit-like—or
carved from a rare or common
vegetable, and placed, accordingly, at the very centre
of the composition. Who would have thought?
With you firmly in mind, noticing also
a preoccupation with clouds, billowing drapes,
tropical birds. And the danger that, at any moment, thought
might be usurped by its more attractive
French aunt, nostalgia. Elsewhere,
the human head must compete with the vase
as an object of beauty, research,
probability—what immense spaces
are summoned forth—this head
upon which inappropriate or inadmissible
hats have been placed.
Armies might have marched before it
or on its account ... And the snow
above and below every thinking
and unthinking
thing ... A flying machine or other such contraption
might land or hover there.
What else lurks beneath the marble
forehead, the inscrutable dome? All manner
of improper thinking or thoughts—
an apartment block, a woman, lost in thought,
beholding herself in a Polish
mirror ... Who is responsible for this?
And what were they thinking? An act
of errant thoughtlessness or just another instance
of thought as it is handed down to us
from our friends in high places, the clouds—
the earth’s brains, as they
are sometimes thought of. You don’t need to look
far to find a suggestion of the human head
in the middle of everything—precisely etched or
rendered by a blunt pencil, as if
in fog. At times a head might be
a target. Was that a woman’s
shoe? A slim volume of verse? Could someone explain
that thin, impetuous shadow
moving at speed? Or, out on the quivering pond
where two thoughts are jostling for windward
advantage, replacing one another until at last
both are replaced by another thought
entirely. The phrase ‘I have been thinking
about you’ could never just be
just an afterthought. Or ‘I was not thinking
straight’—as if a yacht would ever take
the direct route across this
or any pond. I think
not. The direction of thinking having taken us
thus far, on its circuitous route,
on this November morning
when the head of each man and woman
entertains only one encompassing thought:
a woollen hat and scarf, buttoned coat
the play of snow upon
those things
that snow
plays upon.
Paris—Berlin, 23 November 2008