(with apologies to Billy Collins)¹
The light slants lower and longer
But they thirst for knowledge, of a sort,
Like it’s April.
How to start? I warn them that what they seek
Is elusive and may, at times,
Get a bit grubby when the world talks back.
So I ask them to gently take a slice of life,
To hold it up to the bulb’s glow
Like an old fragile transparency
Keeping their fingerprints off the image.
Or stand near its hive
And listen. Take a step closer
Press an ear to the wood
And feel the vibrations of creation
At work inside.
I tease them to look
At their cumulation of transcripts
As a nest of stories.
Then drop a concept into it
Like a mouse
And watch it wriggle, chew or probe its way out
And see what it drags with it.
Or maybe the less interventionist ones would prefer my invitation
To stealthily edge their way
Into this dim world’s darkened room
And fumble along the walls for a light switch
Or the reassuring bump of furnished insight.
I urge them to waterski or windsurf
Across the surface of this foaming reality
(they can dive in time, but not today)
And wave at the other researchers on the dwindling shore.
But it seems that all they want to do
Is tie this mysterious life to a chair with rope
And waterboard a confession out of it.
They stride towards it with a hose
To find out what it really means
To beat away its colourful flesh
To reveal only grey bone
And a damp patch where something
Once felt alive.
¹Inspired by Billy Collins’ “Introduction to Poetry” in his collection “The Apple that Astonished Paris”.
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Stephen A. Linstead
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