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Restless, Oh Restless

How do we "know" anything? With the head or with the heart? Or does knowledge require both? Scientists would have our brains in matter to gather data for the lab. Philosophers want our minds on reason to help explain themselves. Poets worth their malt pay attention to both matter and mind with every fiber of their being. But their being is centered in their hearts. Questions such as: What is nature? What is mind? How does one exist? What is the meaning of death? a poet might translate thus: How is my hand like a bird? My mind like a swamp? Why am I restless like the leaves? Why do I have to leave? In this poem which he read at a recent Hoot, Poet Charles Pratt turns us outside-in as he works us through these essential questions: 
                                                                 - - JP

Restless, Oh Restless

Sometimes his leg starts to step out
On its own; hand shivers,
Hummingbird over flower trumpet,
And hot coffee leaps to his wrist;
Skin vibrates with inexplicable
Urgency, as if it wanted to slip
On a different body. Mind vibrates, too,
Tuft to tuft to tuft across its sad swamp.
And then he goes out in the wind
To grip the arms of the Adirondack chair
And watch the trees' turmoil, the anxiety
Of the leaves, the distraught branches,
Steadily swaying boughs, stiff trunks.
They are restless, oh restless, the trees,
But they stay put.

                            --Charles W. Pratt

"Restless, Oh Restless" copyright 2004 by Charles W. Pratt. Charles is a former English teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy. He is the author of: In the Orchard (Originally Tidal Press) and The Fables in Two Languages and Similar Diversions. Charles and Joan Pratt are the authors of Take this Apple. All three books are published by Pomme Press. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The American Scholar, Poetry, Commonweal and The Atlantic Monthly. With his wife Joan, he runs "Apple Annie," a traditional apple farm in Brentwood, NH.

Please note that the Poetry Hoot sessions are on vacation and will resume normal scheduling, the first Wednesday of each month, starting September 1st at Café Espresso, 800 Plaza, Portsmouth.