Mr. Cogito and the Imagination

Zbigniew Herbert 

Mr. Cogito never trusted 

tricks of the imagination 

the piano at the top of the Alps 

played false concerts for him 

he didn't appreciate labyrinths 

the Sphinx filled him with loathing 

he lived in a house with no basement 

without mirrors of dialectics 

jungles of tangled images 

were not his home 

he would rarely soar 

on the wings of metaphor 

and then he fell like Icarus 

into the embrace of the Great Mother 

he adored tautologies 

explanations 

idem per idem 

that a bird is a bird 

slavery means slavery 

a knife is a knife 

death remains death 

he loved 

the flat horizon 

a straight line 

the gravity of the earth