ode to my brain

(written on a cloudy spring morning when i should be going to work)

it’s my brain sees the dreary gloom behind the blooming apple tree expects yesterday’s drizzly fog to roll in any time now

i won’t notice the darkness creeping in the rosey sunset tonight my brain will blame the messenger

i’m talking here now not my brain just me making notes about what’s happening this morning

for years i trusted my brain visited it the way the greeks would go to delphi catholics used to ask their priests scientists once consulted precision-ground lenses

trusted! despite its multitudinous failures (i thought it was me)

i believed my brain was like the baby jesus tucked in its little manger my skull the holy grail he later raised brimful of proper sacrifice

my brain is just another parasite a hitch-hiker a boarder who can’t pay rent again this month an old dog you can’t bring yourself to put down yet a pardner who got me into a lot of scrapes got me out again too      ok! lotta laughs we’ve had together lotta great conversations

my brain read me Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartre Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead taught me the best parts

my brain’s always told me to get outta bed in the morning now make coffee get to work while you can you got a lot of responsibility

i still have the good sense to listen but i take it all with a few grains of salt now it’s getting old breaking down not dependable as it used to be

in fairness never was what all i made it up to be

my brain was never much like me at all except we go back a ways been through two of us all kinds of ups and downs will likely stick together ‘til the bitterest bitter end

truth be told i don’t know what i’ll be without it

Photo by David Matos on Unsplash