The Mind is a wonderful Thing

is an enchanted thing

like the glaze on a

katydid-wing

subdivided by sun

till the nettings are legion.

Like Giesking playing Scarltti;

like the apteryx-awl

as a beak, or the

kiwi"s rain-shawl

of haired feathers, the mind

feeling its way as though blind,

walks along with its eyes on the ground.

It has memory"s ear

that can hear without

having to hear.

Like the gyroscope"s fall,

truly equivocal

because trued by regnant certainty,

it is a power of strong enchantment. It

is like the dove-

neck animated by

sun; it is memory"s eye;

it"s conscientious inconsistency.

It tears off the veil; tears

the temptation, the

mist the heart wears,

from its eyes - if the heart

has a face; it takes apart

dejection. It"s fire in the dove-neck"s

iridescence; in the inconsistencies

of Scarlatti.

Unconfusion submits

its confusion to proof; it"s

not a Herod"s oath that cannot change.