Lisa Brockwell #13 My mind

My mind

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.

–     Gerard Manley Hopkins

Is one hundred thousand seabirds

lodged inside a cliff, honeycombed into rock,

each one a mound of flesh and feathers

in its own solitary hollow.  Facing the wind,

feathers ruffled for warmth, all dug in, until

a wisp, a rumour, a fleeting fear fixes

an eye: one shudders, two jump and they all explode

out to take to the wing, calling, panicking, circling

over the waves, a storm of birds created

by itself, a new formation of fear

manifest in muscle, in flight and voice.

This can go on for quite a long time.

Then the wind might drop, and one or two

might bravely elect to return to the ledge,

to look out, again, over the bubbling

sea. The rest will follow, eventually.