I love Gerald Stern's description of the mind in this poem. Is the mind more like a piece of paper or a squirrel? You decide.
I Remember Galileo
by Gerald Stern
I remember Galileo describing the mind
as a piece of paper blown around by the wind
and I loved the sight of it sticking to a tree
or jumping into the back seat of a car,
and for years I watched paper leap through my cities;
but yesterday I saw the mind was a squirrel caught crossing
route 80 between the wheels of a giant truck,
dancing back and forth like a thin leaf,
or a frightened string,
9 comments:
"For this life I need a squirrel" is a wonderful line. Thank you for posting this poem; I didn't know it.
I'm going to have to think about that! I don't feel like my mind is like paper or a squirrel -- I guess I need my own metaphor :) Love the poem, though.
Ruth, I am sorry that I have not visited your blog lately. There is always something that interrupts life lately. Challenges abound and time flies by but now I am finally over most of the post-effects of cataract surgery. The last of the drops stop next week and perhaps I will feel free again. As for your poem, it is very interesting and took several readings to settle my thoughts. At this point in time, I want to settle and not race around like a paper scurrying everywhere. I also want the fear of rushing across a highway like a squirrel to subside. Fear is deadly for me. Perhaps, I am moving far away from the intent of the author but this is what the mind went too while reading.
If I had to pick, my mind would be paper all the way! But I'm like Tabatha...I think there's a better metaphor for my mind than either one. Sometimes a caterpillar on fennel or milkweed (chomp, chomp, chomp), sometimes the butterfly (flit, flit, flit)!
Love this poem. I want paper, but I need squirrel. And if I could choose something else altogether, I'd choose a clear blue lake with loons.
Thanks for introducing me to Gerald Stern and this poem. Perhaps as Tabatha and Mary Lee suggest another metaphor awaits each of us for our mind-well…
Michelle K
Fascinating to ponder which, and like others, if at all. I think most of the time, I sail from place to place like that paper, up and ready, but less directive than the squirrel probably is. What an interesting poem, Ruth.
Hmm... I will want to think more about this paper. But I will certainly recall it whenever I am driving now!
I can't explain why I like this poem...as others have pointed out...a piece of paper as metaphor for my mind? But, that squirrel...running and showing up in other lines...that might be the metaphor from me.
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