LIGHTHOUSES OF THE MIND

"Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child."
R.L.S.

Come Louis and play
with my food

transforming my  porridge
with a sprinkle of imagination

so that dusted with sugar
it becomes a land

buried under snow
and now with milk

a land invaded by
a white sea

the mind flooded
with thought

wave upon wave
of seeing

the food itself
taking second place

to whatever Thought
can get its teeth into

when seasoned with
such dreams.

And on nights in Nice
or in La Solitude in Hyères

writing in the dark
with your left hand

to spite the sciatica
fight the haemorrhaging

the partial blindness of
Egyptian ophthalmia.

"New Songs of Innocence" or
"Whistles for Small Whistlers*

finally becomes
"A Child's Garden of Verses."

Robert Louis Stevenson
creating in the night

lighthouses
of the mind.