I just finished rewriting this poem.

A Shade Of Old Wine

I am at home now,
safe above the town.
But wasn’t I lost?

I believe I went somewhere
and returned carrying something.
I ache. I’m tired from walking
and bearing the weight of it.

The mind is vast and powerful,
an empire of its own design.
It has a harbor full of ships
and armies raised for war.

We send messages out
through the darkness that drips
from trees around the house.

Did you see me pass by
yesterday or any time
this afternoon?

I was wearing this shirt,
a shade of old wine
with blue stripes.

I might have looked
this full of sin, this lost.
I’m sure I was walking alone,
carrying something.

A Shade Of Old Wine by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Notes:

How large is consciousness? If, as Charles Simic says, there may be a moon shining within a stone, and just enough light to make out the star charts on its inner walls, then the limits of consciousness – if there are any – surely have no relation to the size of the human skull. Or the body’s place on planet Earth.

In order to imagine a walnut must consciousness be that small? It it can conceive the universe, isn’t it at least that big? Regardless, the mind is an easy place to get lost.

Here’s Simic, reading his poem Stone.