poetry and phoney psychics

Digging For China
By Richard Wilbur

‘Far enough down is China,’ somebody said.
‘Dig deep enough and you might see the sky
As clear as at the bottom of a well.
Except it would be real – a different sky.
Then you could burrow down until you came
To China! Oh, it’s nothing like New Jersey.
There’s people, trees, and house, and all that,
But much, much different. Nothing looks the same.’

I went and got the trowel out of the shed
And sweated like a coolie all that morning,
Digging a hole beside the lilac-bush,
Down on my hands and knees. It was a sort
Of praying, I suspect. I watched my hand
Dig deep and darker, and I tried and tried
To dream a place where nothing was the same.
The trowel never did break through to blue.

Before the dream could weary of itself
My eyes were tired of looking into darkness,
My sunbaked head of hanging down a hole.
I stood up in a place I had forgotten,
Blinking and staggering while the earth went round
And showed me silver barns, the fields dozing
In palls of brightness, patens growing and gone
In the tides of leaves, and the whole sky china blue.
Until I got my balance back again
All that I saw was China, China, China


FIRSTLY: didn't we all do this? ok maybe not so much the barns and fields things, but I know as soon as dad told me that, I went straight into his shed, half-inched his trowel and spent the next three hours trying to dig to china until I hit London Clay, then I gave up.
SECONDLY
Just watched a documentary on this self-proclaimed baby mind reader called Derek Ogilvie who says he can read people's minds. I personally agree with the guy who does the commentary on this video on youtube


BUT on the documentary, they hooked him up to this machine in a lab to read his brain while he was 'psychically communicating' with a kid, and the readings showed that the part of his brain that is linked to non verbal communication was in a highly active state. I'm not sure how he'd fool a scientist to make this happen, but I still don't think he can read babies minds - I reckon he cold reads - conveniently, the kids he 'reads' are too young to go 'listen mate, you're chatting crap, what I'm actually trying to say is that you're freaking me out with your wierd shouting and jumping around, and I'd quite like a chocolate biscuit and a nap'

I DO think he genuinely believes he is communicating, but to be honest - isn't it possible.. or LIKELY, even, that the reason that part of his brain is hyperactive is because he thinks he's communicating psychically?

Par example: if I'm looking at a person and saying things at them in my head... say, "for fucks sake, does the whole bus really need to hear how drunk you got at the weekend? do we care, bus people? NO! WE DON'T! Jesus Christ, why can't they ban mobile phones on public transport?"'...

wouldn't that register as being nonverbal communication if someone hooked me up to a computer?

hmmm... not sure what to think about psychic-ness.... I don't want to dismiss it, because things have happened to me before - psychic feelings, if you will, like, I know when something bad is going to happen - I feel it, and I just *know*. And then it happens. That, I can't explain, so I try my best to put it down to coincidence, otherwise, I'd totally freak out - but yes - the human brain is such a complex thing, that we are only just beginning to explore and to understand, and there is so much in the world, and in 'life' that we can't explain, that I can't dismiss psychic abilities out of hand, but at the same time, when I see guys like this who shamelessly capitalise on people's weaknesses - and guys like that Derek Acorah and those other ghost whisperers who prey on people's desparate longing to be connected to dead loved ones, it does make me angry and I don't believe in them.... In my opinion, if they were genuine psychics, they wouldn't exploit people and capitalise on them... but then this is the age of 'dog eat dog', right?

I don't even know what I'm talking about now- I'm just waffling- so I'll just shut up. The basic gist is that I am remaining agnostic on the subject of psychic ability.



Actually, there is one more poem I want to share today - maybe it'll get you thinking too!

Wagtail and Baby

A baby watched a ford, whereto
A Wagtail came for drinking;
A Blaring bull went wading through,
The Wagtail showed no shrinking.

A Stallion splashed his way across,
The birdie nearly sinking;
He gave his plumes a twitch and toss,
And held his own, unblinking.

Next saw the baby round the spot
A mongrel slowly slinking;
The Wagtail gazed, but faltered not
In dip and sip and prinking.

A perfect gentleman then neared;
The Wagtail, in a winking,
With terror rose, and disappeared;
The baby fell a-thinking.

Thomas Hardy