A Poet's Journal: May 26th, 2014

May 26th, 2014

'The impoverishment of imagination' was a phrase I read the other day in regards to Milton and his poem, the overcoming of which would be no surprise to any of us could we calm the source of idle thought.  The plane of reality must spread out before us so openly, that if there is ever any bias, the distance shall not lose its vivacity, nor all the sustenance that was in the heart run out into the stagnant pools of anticipation.  But even this is merely the whisper of vanity; for whenever something inwardly is given a motive for production, the nature of what we saw deep inside us becomes the object by which we miss our mark.  Most of the time, by the end of our projects, we are deluded as to what they really are; and it is only now that I am coming to realize that any of my undertakings, though they may take months to accomplish, always come back to the initial idea I started with, no matter how many evolutions they have undergone.  Imagination becomes impoverished only because we are not happy with what it produces and we run along behind it in hopes of steering it towards external circumstances; rarely do we enter into it as one who recognizes an old friend only after a few long and awkward moments.

Douglas Thornton