Towhead
'Somewhere I heard that you cannot trust your eyes/that is until I read that the eyes must guide the mind'
(A towhead in the Blackwater River, Maryland. Photo courtesy of Tom Dills Photography Blog.)
‘Towhead’ appeared at The Camel Saloon on January 24th, 2013.
Towhead
I push off from the dock quietly and its brown
end slides away into the morning fog. This coolness
is misleading, shouldn’t the water’s breath be warm?
A heron emerges becoming a stick; I cannot
figure how it got here, what with shore so
far off.
My oars touch the bottom.
Somewhere I heard that you cannot trust your eyes;
that is until I read that the eyes must guide the mind.
Most of the time my fondest wish is embodied
by a small boat crossing something flat and wide
with the mind a towhead.
-Jeremy Nathan Marks
I find it hard to interpret this poem, Jeremy, even though I like it very much. On one level, we have a depiction of a simple scene on a river, with a man in a boat and a towhead, and that scene is clear and vivid. On another level, that man seems to be making a journey - possibly his journey through life - and wishes to find something as reliable as a towhead (a mental towhead?) to guide him because what he envisions can determine how and where goes.
Well, that's what I've come up with so far!
Thanks for that, Jeremy. I'll read it again now, bearing your insights in mind.
Generally, I find that poems that cause me difficultly are often the ones I like most at a later stage because I put the effort into seeing what's in them.