Gestalt Poem by Harry St Vincent Beechey

And meanwhile, back at the ranch

There is congruity - as in all things.

But we, in our unidimensional

One-thing-at-a-time linear fashion,

See only the chain of events.

Each forged link binding us to history.

And we think

One-thought-at-a-time

That things are thus and thus - in logical causation. Splitting the rainbow into seven colours

And the world into places on a map.

Yet the heart does not know that it is an organ of the body

And the blood circulates serenely

As readily to the penis as the brain

And the processes of excretion

Are as wonderfully harmonious as ingestion

But we - due to the convolutions

At the upper end of our central nervous system

Fail to see

That "Meanwhile back at the ranch.."

Is a fact of existence.

And you can make a beginning,

Realisation quickening like a sprouting seed,

That your preoccupation with identity

Is a self-inflicted wound that can be healed

And that even crippled as you are

By one-thing-at-a-time thinking

You can restore the ego to the brain

The brain to the body

The body to the world

Until - with a shock of recognition - you will find yourself Back at the Ranch

At which

Meanwhile….

Copyright H.St.V.B.1972