Aarhus, Denmark

The Thinker, Anno 2014

He sits his heavy face in one hand cupped,

The Rodin sculpture of the aeroplane.

The other passengers have wined and supped

And now are partly dozing in the main.

The prim steward perambulates the aisles,

Responding to requests in slow motion.

Our nodding Thinker floats so many miles

Above the globe of reason/emotion,

I’ll bet you what he ponders in his seat

Is not tat tvam asi or ergo sum.

No great equation or heroic feat,

He thinks, I’m sure, of matters more humdrum:

Whether to get a Kindle for his flights,

How to avoid the normal workplace stress,

To spend his afternoon in seeing sights,

Or buy a gift for wife - and for mistress.

Yes, so trivial are all the thoughts he has,

Above the bloody dreams of humanity.

Before you task him, Reader, for being crass,

Applaud his intricate and blue sanity.

Meaning

The sky is slate.

Its birds are marks

My child has doodled,

Gestures in dark ink

That mean only so much

As park and highway

Allow.

So much erased

By wind and cloud

That was legible

Or green and loud in

Its utterance. No tree

Can shout in winter; hear

It now.

It is by this

Practise in sounds

Alien that we come

By degrees round to

The quick of meaning:

A mound of grass buried

In snow.

The mother’s knack

Or father’s skill

To make of smudges

An act of will and

Beauty, the knowledge

That still it’s only love

We know.