DEPTH GAUGE
Standing on the
sunlit bank
Throw yourself into
the stream, shadow and all
If you are in
substance ready to plumb the depth.
The experience you
suffer daily is enough to appall;
Immersion in that
material swamp—contents not forms.
Viewing the
off-season family theatre from the crack
In the stage door;
star-struck neighbors hanging round,
Stiff with drink,
animated bags, stalking before the flood-
Lights and
backtracking into the barren set.
There’s furniture,
sure, the place is packed,
Furniture and
pictures just for the sake of mood.
You are seeking
contact with the wild world,
Aren’t you? I mean
beyond the daily tragedy,
Where unnerved Furies
can be temporarily tamed
By gutbusting
laughter, or where a saint, crowned
By an atom-bomb
blast, stands as an icon on a knoll,
Glowing like the
beaming Dalai Lama in Dharamshala.
Hey! Forget those
black-light dashboard skeletons.
In this scene The
Presence smiles a happy refugee.
Do you really need
the wisdom of bombastic Agamemnon?
Foreverafter fearful
of the backyard bathroom?
That cannot help
much. Noooooooo!
For the scientist and
the poet,
Creative data abounds
To study humankind in
ways beyond the norm:
You know, fragrant
thoughts of forests in Borneo;
An FM-band humming B.
B. King, the blues bard,
Singing “Hummingbird”
just on the verge of twilight
Greening.
Come on then! The horned Bull has been sacrificed,
The Ram has run,
The Fish have played
upon the horizon
In spring morning’s
celestial stream.
If you are going to
enjoy the Waters,
Fall, sun at your
back,
Throw yourself in,
shadow and all.
David Gilmour
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