Words and Ideas
Sometime so hard to express,
The mind feels like a vast building,
Countless corridors, myriad passages with
Numberless rooms,
All locked, keys tossed into a bottomless pit,
Yet seemingly just within my grasp.
Is that the language of the aphasics -
A clueless life spent groping,
Always groping
For words which would not be found?
Then there are other times, like now,
When words seem to flow out,
Abundantly, torrentially, purposefully,
Wresting out ideas half-conceived,
Half-expressed, half-imagined still,
Springing unbidden,
Focusing aim with extravagant clarity,
While ideas burn out
And new ones form,
Even when the seeds run out,
The forms condense to assume
Germinative power,
Running their relentless race.
How to pace the words such that
Ideas and words,
Words and ideas
Always perform in tandem?
Control and precision – these are
The keywords.
The willingness and the ability
To dig deeper
And deeper still,
Even beyond the deepest depth –
Once the obstacles are struck,
They can be overcome;
And then when I dig deeper still,
An ecstatic access
To undiscovered treasures,
All mine, all mine,
More mine than this mortal self
For they are stamped, irreversibly,
With that which makes them possible,
The passion, possession,
The spirit of creativity,
All discoveries,
More waiting still, waiting for me.
Words, though, sometimes
Outrun the thoughts,
The single seed whence they sprung;
But outcomes vary.
While there are some times they reach
Unexpected luminance
When pursuing purposeless path,
The other times they fade and die,
Twisting and turning at dead ends.
Which is stronger,
Ideas or words?
For one may exist
Independent of the other
But unless coupled, they lose
All meaning, all purpose,
Their fruitless existence a burden,
Nothing but a waste of time.
Words assail at times,
Seemingly purposeless,
Then condense fast to form a core,
A brand new idea born, Minerva-like,
Fully armed, fully clothed
With words ready to take it far.
Sometime when an idea strikes,
Result, undoubted, of subconscious thought,
Dazzling the mind with its focus,
The naked brilliance,
Pausing at that is vital then,
And look into its face,
And look,
Then slowly, deliberately
Proceed to clothe it right,
Layer by layer
Till words envelope it
And shape it in a recognizable form.
Giving form to substance,
Or giving soul to a structure,
Who can say what matters more?
Ultimately as I have
A strong new idea thriving,
Nurtured by words that matter,
Relevant, focused and vectored,
I can look the creator in the eye
And share
The wonder and pride of creation.
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