by Ron Padgett
It's funny when the mind thinks about the psyche,
as if a grasshopper could ponder a helicopter.
It's a bad idea to fall asleep
while flying a helicopter:
when you wake up, the helicopter is gone
and you are too, left behind in a dream,
and there is no way to catch up,
for catching up doesn't figure
in the scheme of things. You are
who you are, right now,
and the mind is so scared it closes its eyes
and then forgets it has eyes
and the grasshopper, the one that thinks
you're a helicopter, leaps onto your back!
He is a brave little grasshopper
and he never sleeps
for the poem he writes is the act
of always being awake, better than anything
you could ever write or do.
Then he springs away.
Last updated July 20, 2021