All Hail To The Seizers!

All Hail To The Seizers!
By Bill Kirk

Admit it. Don’t you just sit and wonder sometimes?
I mean, just to marvel at all the stuff
That’s bouncing around inside your head?
Try it if you haven’t. Who knows?
You may find it strangely satisfying to ponder
Just how many little rabbit trails
There surely must be inside the old cranium.
And talk about entertaining—that, too.

The number alone of all the thoughts
Zipping through one’s brain
Has got to be virtually uncountable,
Even if we had a stop-action camera
To freeze the brain in mid-think.
Yep. A think-o-meter is what we need, all right.

Of course, some of the thoughts are mere idle flashes,
Almost as if tiny brain segments
Are constantly dropping in and out of consciousness.
Other thoughts seem more productive,
Forming those proverbial “trains of thought”
About a certain something.
But, alas! Even a “train of thought”
May cover way too much real estate
To capture and categorize.

Why, just this afternoon,
I tracked on such disconnected things as
Bits and pieces of garage inventory—some lost, some found;
A favorite grade school teacher
Who regularly pulled unruly kids’ ears to keep them in line;
And whether a tent I soon plan to use has a hole in it.
Then it was onto where the best deal
On a bed frame and mattress might be.

Oh, and what about those boxes—unopened since 1985,
There in the upstairs bedroom closet?
Could that be where those errant bossun heads are?
Hundreds and thousands of questions,
Affirmations and reminders,
Stack up continually and almost instantaneously,
Like so many mental “sticky notes to self”.

Sure, we try our best to catalog
The endless stream of rambling ruminations—
At times in the very moment,
Or more likely in retrospect.
An image of trough upon metal trough
Filled to the brim with key punch cards comes to mind.
Doesn’t it make you wonder whether there might be
A giant queue awaiting cranial processing time?
Ah, yet another idle thought goes to the back of the line—
No cuts allowed. Or are they?

Of course, all attempts to give order to such chaos
Must inevitably be futile, right?
After all, are any of those so-called idle thoughts
Ever really idle at all?

Always in motion and, therefore, just beyond our control,
Billions of thoughtful snippets
Layer themselves one upon another,
Seeming to simmer silently until sufficient heat
Brings them to the surface.
That’s when the action gets interesting
As they bounce around like pin balls
Off the unending undulations of our collective cerebellae.
How could any of us be expected to keep track of it all?

Perhaps the answer to that question
Defines us as much more than
Mere copers and survivors.
Instead, are we not called to exercise
The full measure of our human capacity?
Indeed, are we not to be seizers of the day,
Destined to flourish, thrive and forge ahead
From one stimulating challenge to the next?

But is it the relishers of freefall—
The stimulation seekers—
Who hold human progress in their hands?
Or will those with the power to calmly disregard
The crush of competitive zeal,
Quietly lead humankind to the earthly promised land?

No matter. Either way, all those who grab the moment
And work toward the greater good deserve a cheer—

ALL HAIL TO THE SEIZERS!