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