PARTITIONS POEM 4

Full of life and the splendour of the world, I came upon the conclusion that love is within us and without. Seeing the soul in all and the rhythms of life reflected in forms without, made me combine the thoughts of the mind with the heart, reflected in the form of the body. There is a sense to the world mathematical, we have found and the patterns of a leaf can be reflected in a formula. This is what I was most interested in at the time of Partitions and in the writing.

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"Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain." Santiago Ramon y Cajal

Caverns

Capacious in their daunting size,

I came upon a series of caves,

A labyrinth of such extent

And darkness

That thought itself

Could not have echoed through,

The connected chambers,

Fresh with liquid,

That carried the life of it,

Did not resound as one shouted.

Shouting into an empty darkness,

I could not resolve it,

To solve a puzzle is why we exist,

And yet the tangents

And the twists

Did not reveal their nature

Or whereupon on would find

A sign

For direction

Or even consequence.

No hieroglyph,

No secret pass,

No coded letter

Could explain,

What to expect,

Where to turn,

Or what this cavernous space contained.

Perchance to dream,

But sleepless nights,

Rough shod and interrupted,

Did not reveal,

Did not foreshadow,

Nor even reflect.

A buzz of sound,

Non-descript was

All the desert sleep gestate

Brought forth,

Dry as a mouth

Full of desert dust

My infertile mind knew nothing of you.

A hazarded guess,

A wink and a smile

Was all that it took,

And here you were,

My captive,

Captured in safety

And conceived

Almost by concept alone.

Not a native land,

No treaty had been made,

And yet a pact secret

And tender

Had brought forth

A future bold and risky.

What made us dare?

What joined us?

A pair of thoughts

Of kindness and redemption,

More precious than anything bought or sold.

How was I to keep our treasure

Secret and safe?

There lies the secret

And positive the draft,

Between the sheets

Lay more than posited truths,

There lay possibility and hope.

I like the idea that one could sculpt one's mind with habits and persuasions. The brain is thought of as fluid and the connections electrical can be encouraged or dissuaded with constant practice. For example, I took to practicing the piano again and found that with the constant reminder to my fingers and my brain, therefore, I was able to remember the chordal structures in a way that I did not when I was too busy to apply myself daily. It is the theory that learning an instrument as a child makes you smarter and I see that even as an adult, as I began to make new connections, something that brain theory would seem to support. Walking and exercise is similar as your coordination are more than limb movement and heart health, but physical connections repeated. This I learnt while teaching children 'Brain Gym' and so I have taken it to heart and have learnt to dance in the heart, as well as in the body.