I often have conversations
With objects around me -
From
Mindless banter snowballing into
Heart-to-heart conversations,
To
Waking up in the middle of the night,
Fumbling for the right switch in the darkness
To put the lights on so I can see
For a split second,
Things obligingly lying still in their place,
As they stagger through burdened time
To lull myself into sleep
With an assurance of familiarity.
On days I enter my room
With bottled thoughts, when these things,
With all their weathered, withered strength
Spur me on to etch out utterances at length
Knowing as they do,
You don't always seek
A response, reaction, remark, judgment,
To something you nevertheless feel the need to speak,
Which at times starts to turn incomprehensible
To yourself and to the other,
As your tongue rolls them out
In the gibberish of vowels and consonants.
So I start off on a mindless rhyme
At times confessing my mind's crimes,
Scraping out fears rusty with neglect
Pulling out halted thoughts from a staggering stack,
Laughing as I admit to myself that joke was funny.
Crying with relish for I won't be accused of being weak.
Stretching out a tune I'd only ventured to hum [in public],
Into a song, hearing my voice sing & strum,
In a long time.
[Hitting the table with a pen
To make up for the beats.]
Dancing with awkward steps on my two left feet,
But dancing nevertheless.
[Thank goodness I have feet to dance.)
Of my own presence poses a threat,
I need their company, these non-living things,
The only solace sensitive to my minds' mutterings.
“I do not believe,” [Edison] said, “that matter is inert, acted upon by an outside force. To me it seems that every atom is possessed by a certain amount of primitive intelligence. Look at the thousand of ways in which atoms of hydrogen combine with those of other elements, forming the most diverse substances. Do you mean to say that they do this without intelligence? . . . Gathered together in certain forms, the atoms constitute animals of the lower orders. Finally they combine in man, who represents the total intelligence of all the atoms.”
“But where does this intelligence come from originally?” I asked.
“From some power greater than ourselves.”
