The Habits of the Mind

THE HABITS OF THE MIND

Infinite curiosity
The mind never rests…..
Searching and probing,
The better, the best.

Imagination’s fantasies
Transforming the real
Infusing emotion
Into things that do not feel….

The tears of a tree
The smile of a sun
Worry lines on a rock
Drooping flowers, undone.

But motion is not emotion
Nor brightness a smile
A wind is not a spirit
A stream has no guile

An active observer
Transforms every scene
Reads his own thoughts
Into forests and greens

The forest foreboding
The green lush, inviting
The sunlight so cheerful
Sea waves delighting.

Animation without animus,
We long for connection
Between nature and human nature
All life needs direction.

But mere curiosity
Never finds the design
It sees without perceiving
The hand of the divine.

A fertile imagination
Is not of much use
Unless it bears good fruit
Not a trifle or a ruse.

A mind untamed
Wanders through life
Always seeking never finding
Goes from striving to strife.

A mind undisciplined
Like an unmade bed
Imagines accomplishments
But it’s all in his head.

The ego, like a bellows
Inflates the brain
It thinks it’s a genius
But in fact is mundane.

It borrows tomorrow
To pay for today
But the bills will come due
Before life fades away.

The habits of the mind
Reveal dispositions of the heart
The values, the virtues
Or their lack, from the start.

There is something in life
Worse than wasting one’s time
And that is surely
Wasting a good mind.

BW3

8/6/18