I Think I Am Poem by Tom Courtney

Who am I? Seems mild enough
What’s the material? What’s the stuff?
Questions asked since ages old
Libraries of thought once writ unfold

Reams and reams of the printed work
Layer upon layer the questions lurk
Just beyond the mind of man
He presses on as best he can

He postulates hypothesizes
He senses dreams he falls and rises
I am enough for here I stand
He looks for rock and finds quicksand

His essence seems beyond his measure
His thought and instinct – all his treasure
are wrapped and folded tied and bowed
Philosophy is what he knowed

He’s sure – unsure he’s bold and meek
His nature seems to be to seek
He looks and thinks and ponders deep
He trods the shallows climbs the steep

I’m conscious conscious, hear him cry
He fixes mind on his mind’s eye
His very logic perfected math
Then leads him down a wayward path

He questions what still lies beyond
In all creation what’s the bond?
He says: I think therefore I am
and finds his thought ad hominem

My thought is just my higher brain
My instinct has a truer reign
And wherefrom instinct? Biology?
With due respect, anatomy?

He knows of heart – a truer course
is more than likely at the source
His will - desire – leads him on
when mind is baffled almost gone

He asks for strength and knows that root
bears mighty bough from tiny shoot
He says I’m free to choose my way
but cannot change the night to day

He cannot ask another hair
a single molecule of air

And actor in the play am I?
or audience to a kind of lie?
He often says in fact I know
the nature of this splendid show

Contents himself with simple songs
the constant rights the laws the wrongs
and tucks himself in to bed each night
and closes shop – he knows he’s right

I wish I had that fortitude
that strength of faith that attitude
But I am not that chosen one
I question moon and star and sun

I toss and turn in restless sleep
I find it hard to make the leap
from knowledge that we say we know
to who I am – and thus I go