On Richard Wilbur’s Birthday: “Mind”

Richard Wilbur

Mind

Mind in its purest play is like some bat

That beats about in caverns all alone,

Contriving by a kind of senseless wit

Not to conclude against a wall of stone.

It has no need to falter or explore;

Darkly it knows what obstacles are there,

And so may weave and flitter, dip and soar

In perfect courses through the blackest air.

And has this simile a like perfection?

The mind is like a bat. Precisely. Save

That in the very happiest intellection

A graceful error may correct the cave.

— Richard Wilbur

Ed. note: Richard Wilbur, who died in 2017, would have been 101 today.

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Author: The Best American Poetry