Descartes's Dream

[an old fave from undergrad days]

He felt a sudden weakness on his right side
And leaned over to his left to walk the street
But, sensing he made a foolish figure, straightened up
Only to be spun around by a violent wind
And, as he sought shelter in the college chapel,
Rushed by a man in black he thought he’d known.
Who learns to doubt everything can see
The world’s painted dropcloth drawn on strings
Past the grimy window of a train de vie.
I will my arm to move but the flesh abides.

Clockmaker, coolie, collaborator –
He will depend on nothing, not the servant
Girl with the small breasts, not the duke’s
Armies or the thrumming wheel of logic.
In the quadrangle the others all stood upright
Talking with the friend he’d slighted.
Friend? Whom to trust and whom to shun?
Sudden thunder. Fiery sparks are streaming
Through the room. They come from the friend’s mouth.
Truth is whatever darkness we choose to ignore.

He opened the book he found on the upper shelf.
Old tags he recognized but couldn’t name.
Someone called to him from the quadrangle.
If he wished to find his friend, here was a gift
To give him, he said, and held out a curious melon,
The seeded song of nature, its germs of light.
He wanted to show the book now to the man
But as he turned the pages the words slid
Into tiny portraits, copperplate engravings
Of the servant girl, the duke, his mother, himself.

Bodies, those false witnesses, serve the light,
Which would not shine unless it broke against them.
The weight of the falling planet presses into
His eyelids. Suddenly, both the man and the book
Disappeared. The weight lifted. Reason
Again held the reins of the bolting blood-horse.
How far must we get away from the earth to see it
Properly? How long must we go without knowing
Before we discover that everything leads back
To something as simple and dreadful as the night?

--J.D. McClatchy, 1998