The Mind's Strange Beauty, With Its Smile Poem by Michael Shepherd

It’s said, that when our mind
awakes, out of that sweetest place
in which it sleeps, rests, is refreshed;
in the morning; or in those
rare moments when we let it take its rest;

this wondrous instrument, invisible,
yet holding all we think is ours…
in the twinkling before it spreads our world
before us, like some awed geographer
unrolling with two hands a map from polished rods,
inviting exploration, conquest, or desire…

in that great moment, as it emerges from that place
which is to us no place… that holy place,
of universal mind before it’s individual –
that bran tub where we thrust our eager arm –
splits its precious unity, which some mighty force
beyond place and time itself, has decreed that mind
may find itself, or lose itself, in multiplicity –

splits this onely mind into polarity:
scans like some godly radar,
its whole vast world surveyed;
surveyed in truth; indifferent
as that sweeping line which arcs incessantly
to show, there’s this and this…

a fraction of a moment, and then we
clothe all this playground of the soul
(glancing so quickly, setting up
imaginary walls, beyond which
be dragons and our mortal enemies…) with our illusions,
our beloved illusions, the land
where we may play, pretend ourselves
to be ourselves… our world
of friction and duality:

from small (it thinks) to great (it fears) ,
from good (it likes) to bad (it scorns..)
the pleasing and unpleasing there;
the loves and hates; all the illusions
that we defend, fight over, argue, build…
the friction of the tire on road…
all set against each other – in our mind;
‘nor good nor bad, but thinking makes it so’…

This is the magic of the mind; with this,
ourselves as conmen, tricksters – sometimes
healers, teachers, wise men too –
with this, in this we play,
as poets with a dictionary;
know this – and watch this ticking, exquisite watch,
its intricate fine mechanism
running on until its spring winds down:

know this, and laugh that heavenly laugh
that blows away illusion; that laugh
that has the sweetest sound you ever heard,
as if you laughed with gods; or,
smiling as a goddess smiles.