Think for yourself

Two years ago the poet Paul Lenzi shared a poem on his blog that truly bowled me over. It still does. I return to it as to a hallowed hospital for the soul. And sometimes it’s the other way around – the work returns to me, like inner light, by way of one of those timely “reblogged this on …” emails. And I’m grateful for the great grace with which Paul allows and encourages still wider, deeper sharing of a poem that, I think, is about just that – still wider, deeper sharing.

think for yourself

new streams cut and curve
diving down through the snowpack
escaping the slopes with the help of the sun
cold and barren ideas will eventually thaw
find their flowing descent from high mountains of mind
to the ponds and the pools where they join
other waters absconded from glaciers of ancient beliefs
swirling eddies reconstitute certainties
muddle and deconstruct dogmatic doctrines
no longer cast frozen in rarefied air
now in potable mixtures free radical concepts
available here within low-lying reach of the everyman
this is where thinking can have its refreshment
slake thirst for clear unpresumed knowledge
if only the thinker will kneel unassuming
make cup of his penitent palms and then drink

Paul F Lenzi

poesypluspolemics

How we need to know, today, that cold and barren ideas will eventually thaw 

And how profoundly I need to maintain faith in the sort of generous reconstitutions that might arise from other waters absconded from glaciers of ancient beliefs 

How glorious a vision – dogmatic doctrines no longer cast frozen in rarefied air – replaced by something infinitely more drinkable – within low-lying reach of the everyman 

Let thinkers cup their palms to access a living water, arisen from the depths – having first acknowledged – by way of the penitent’s turning around, by way of a new looking, that our present-day cultural deserts are absolutely and utterly parched.

I thirst. We thirst. The world thirsts. But cupped hands – well, they could change that.

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