Mind Game

Nearly every day, a blip of a poem crashes into the front of my skull. I feel it there, burrowing into my mind like a little worm. I try to catch it, only to have it vanish. It leaves a hole, a knowing that there was something worthwhile in those fleeting moments.

This usually occurs when I'm looking at a photo, or reading something eloquent, or am otherwise preoccupied. Long ago I could sit down and write poetry, but I have not done this is so long I don't know that I could do it again if I tried.

I have long held a theory that thoughts are fluid things, moving about the air always, waiting for the right person to capture the notion. That's why electricity was invented in the U.S. and in Europe somewhere at about the same time. Fluid thoughts, captured by the same enigmatic kinds of minds.

So it is with poems and stories, all things creative. The visions and words are there, floating in the air, moving along some current that is open only to the brain. Thus creativity lies within our reach always, if we would but open our minds to snatch it.

It is, of course, the opening that is the problem, and once snatched, the creative thought must be used or it will drift on out. Then it becomes ours to mold and stretch, to blend and sift and move about as we will. But we must hang on to it and do more than a brief acknowledgement. Or blip, out it goes.

The photo is from the 1800s and is a picture of Solitude, a home in Fincastle. I found it while I was sifting through my photo collection, looking for something that reminds me of something else. The something else is long gone now, but I think, if I look hard enough, there might be poetry in such a picture, a vision of a time long gone and nearly lost.