Isles and eagles of the mind

I’ve revelled in one of those delicious days inspired by a special friend’s book recommendations! You know the sort of thing? You dip into the opening pages of each of several, and one thing leads to another, and you can’t quite settle on which to tackle first because each looks as good as the other, and there’s a deep blue sky and sunshine, so you have a break to mow stripes in the lawn, and all the while the mind returns to the books, and to more books, and more, and from thence to enthusiastic gratitude – for special friends on the one hand, and for ‘mind time,’ alone sometimes, on the other. And I suppose it was inevitable that I’d remember one of my favourite poems – one that I always reach for when my heart is full, because the day has been.

Eagles and Isles

Eagles and isles and uncompanioned peaks,
The self-reliant isolated things,
Release my soul, embrangled in the stress
Of all day’s crass and cluttered business,
Release my soul in song and give it wings –
And even where the traffic roars and rings,
With senses stunned and beaten deaf and blind,
My soul withdraws into itself and seeks
The peaks and isles and eagles of the mind.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, 1878-1962