The Accoutrements of Knowledge

The Accoutrements of Knowledge The accoutrements of knowledge had crept into his life, overtaking it. No more did he sit and think, idly allowing nuance to shade gray the black and white of learning’s playful inconsistencies. Old books, manuals, manuscripts, texts, subscribed to journals, cluttered his encroaching space. Old thoughts, ideas, dreams, brainstorms and brain-farts, waited – holding numbers – lost in the labyrinth of slumbering genius. The need to learn, the drive to succeed, had seduced him, lured him into the netherworld of concrete minds, set in their ways, confident of their credos. This hell of blindly accepted dictates emanating from a “think” tank, this babbling of banal benediction, this forced worship of the mindless by the thoughtless had dimmed the beauty of the sunrise, muted the music of the spheres, closed the eyes of the seekers, pulling the wool of doubt over them. So he left the trappings of the pedagogues, fled the archways of academia, sought a clear and simple thought - An endeavor not unlike the search for an honest man. His goal was not to think but to experience thought, not to memorize the dance steps but to experience dancing. They said that he had “burnt out”, lost his focus, succumbed to the stress. Now free of the encumbrance of the accoutrements of knowledge, he was free again to seek, to follow, to be conscious of the sound of his heartbeat, the rhythmic surge of his pulse, the shimmering glow of a dappled sunrise. He would learn from all about him, study the art of the mud daubers, the construction of the beavers, listen to the songs of the lark and sparrow, answer the call of the coyotes, taste the bliss of the bee hive honey. He learned – no books can teach you the scent of dew damp grass at dawn, nor recreate the harrumphing solo of the lead bullfrog. Nor could they explain how the dragonflies dance varies from the butterflies ballet. And so he thought. How and why had he constructed a barrier of knowledge that frustrated his search for anything else? 1/24/2015 submitted to – Any Poem Written in the Year 2015 sponsor – Laura Loo