Monday, April 23, 2012

Division of Labor

Division of Labor

Think of the last time your brain
handed over the car keys to your body,

Here, you steer. Where did your
mind go, a city with an ocean where

the air should be, an empty bridge.
When your mind returned, where had

your body taken you. Don’t blame
your hands. They can’t think, even if

they can drive. What other logic
could you will away, then. Try this one:

while driving, imagine that you
don’t know where your car is. Where did

I park, ask yourself that, and see
if you don’t provoke a few anxiety-birds

to shoot into the air, screeching.
The next experiment: imagine you are

alongside those birds, looking
down from the tree branches at your car,

you can see the gray roof, and
the dusty windshield, and through that,

the driver of the car, sunglasses,
a face. Yours. Watch yourself for a bit,

observe from a distance. Keep
driving. Put the operation of the vehicle

in the “Body Functions and
Operations” task list. You have places to be.

5 comments

  1. Anxiety birds! I love that!!!!

    re: the image...my goodness I've felt like that a lot lately!

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  2. Oh, the places your images take me!

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  3. Oh good grief! This is brilliant! I have a dread of driving alone long distance because at some point I find myself wondering --now, how did I get here?
    My father insisted that sometimes when you are driving long distance, you hit a time warp and are suddenly in a new place. I think that's happened to me.

    Also, when I am running I sometimes feel as if I am watching myself run--I am in the trees or the wind, looking down and wondering, who/what is that?

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  4. we are divided, aren't we? sometimes integrated, but not often so. or perhaps this is why i look the way i do to others~

    a wonderful poem, hannah.

    xo
    erin

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  5. Ha! You published this one on our wedding day. That's how we felt in the days leading up to the event, trying to get everything ready. By Sunday we were in a daze and somehow floated through the day.

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