The Powers

"The Song of The Powers" - David Mason

Mine, said the stone,

mine is the hour.

I crush the scissors,

such is my power.

Stronger than wishes,

my power, alone.

Mine, said the paper,

mine are the words

that smother the stone

with imagined birds,

reams of them, flown

from the mind of the shaper.

Mine, said the scissors,

mine all the knives

gashing through paper’s

ethereal lives;

nothing’s so proper

as tattering wishes.

As stone crushes scissors,

as paper snuffs stone

and scissors cut paper,

all end alone.

So heap up your paper

and scissor your wishes

and uproot the stone

from the top of the hill.

They all end alone

as you will, you will.

I was at first overwhelmed by the selection when I was asked to memorize a poem from a list the size of a phone book. My immediate reaction, being the positioning jerk that I am, was to memorize a poem by a big name author so that I could flaunt it sometime down the road. My decision to rest with a 10 year old poem by a more obscure author was an easy one, however, as this poem reached to me in a way few have before.

Nothing quite annoys me in poetry as much as when the poet assembles his words in a pretentious, jejune assembly of imagery without any grounding. If you're going to use a metaphor, make it a unique and powerful one. I don't care if your emotions flutter and shake like the breeze. Apparently, everyone's do. That's what made this poem grab me so well. The metaphor it used was pertinent, fun and original. It conjures images of standing on the street outside of St. Ann's Elementary School playing with my friends, but also conveys a message I find myself forgetting too often as I apply to university. All the fuss I make at school or home or trying to get this or that award is really an exercise in futility, and I have to remember that if I'm not doing it for fun, I might as well not do it.

But he gets a "B" on intricacy. He could have a lot of fun with this.