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Tail of the Peacock
Turned out of doors for a cloudy mind,
For weather more clemently inclined
I had to trust, al frescoly,
To what flung-down meteorology
Befell to me along the road
When, for such inner rout,
I had, for my cloud-capped abode,
To ride the inner out.
My mind had been too long in books,
Its eye worn out with searching looks
For inspired tropes of imagery
Not looked down on as plagiary,
But reign—come down (from lofty airs)
—Divine-write inspiration!
Yet rained, my mindıs condensed affairs,
No such precipitation.
We trudged the road, my mind and I,
Under an altocumulous sky,
Each anxiously eyeing (weather vain)
For the slightest heavenly sign of reign.
But the drought went on, we too parched on
To the crest of Writerıs Block Hill
Where I gazed on defeat, while my mind fixed upon,
At its feet—a heaven-sent quill!
Oh, and, Master, no quill of a drab bird design,
But a beauteous quill, Master, down write-divine!
Only look! it effused, at its colors, its length!
Not the meanest—three feet!—of its pre-scriptive strength.
Itıs a gift—a godsend—come down from above
(Or behind)—from the male peacock.
What a quilt we could fashion! what words of love
With this quill—the best on the block!
Master, take it in hand, this feathery pearl,
Master, look in her face—sheıs the loveliest girl.
See how slender she is—look!—how sensuously
She sways—and sheıs one blue eye like me
Can we take her home—O master, please,
What beauties we three would write;
Endless fluencies of euphonies
—One eternal fanciful flight!
Its every cloud broken up and gone,
My mind raced the more rhapsodically on:
Master, what bon mots we canıt summon by will
Could be flowing—non-stop—from the tip of this quill
Well dipped in a well of indigo ink
We would keep by our writerly side;
Youıd not have to scratch while I try to think
—Thereıd be more ıfore the ink has dried!
I tried to rein in its accolade
Without raining too hard on its paean parade;
But itıs ever the way with the poesied mind:
You give it its head and it serves you in kind.
The quill is not up to the modern speed,
I put it in mind to say,
And you hardly see a one of its breed
In the hand of a poet today.
The computer now is all the rage
For getting oneıs belle lettres on the page
—What, hatched in that old cerebral place?
No, coldly snatched from cyber space.
For all the fanfare given its tail,
Though quills of a noble size,
No peacock has done a thing but fail
To win the Nobel Prize.
Oh, Master, itıs true, I know of one
Who struts and frets he too has none
—But, Master, oh surely such a quill
Could fashion a tale, if you only will,
As tall as any thatıs gone before,
Nay, tallest of any of these.
I know it would fit through the swell head door
Can we take it home, Master—please!
I’d’ve heaved that quill by the side of the road,
Tore my mind away and homeward strode,
But I’d racked and flogged and belabored it so
These cloud-capped weeks I just couldnıt say no.
I clutched it in hand, and my mind heaved a sigh
Iıd stopped just shy of the brink of
Nobly tossing it by (what a tail!) thought I
…And there are my memoirs to ink of.
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