A Cell Poem by john tiong chunghoo

brain, are you there
just to be used?

if that is so, you are
the most abused of
all organs. yet as i sit
back, and reflect,
i cannot help seeing you
weaving other dreams for us
one that we cannot order
you around like scurrying back
to a toddler what seven times seven are

the dreams are more than that
and have more to do with a reptile
that once crept in the swamp
but soon finds itself in the sky
held tightly by the noose
by its ever scheming mind,
a moon that holds a thousand secrets

the mind sooner or later
coolly firmly asserts itself to be master
and not slave

the man? well, at one time
he was lying in water, a cell
with its brain outside - a universal brain
in the plants, stars, moons

millions and millions of years
passed to enable the brain outside
to grow into the cell, to guide it to
what we see manifested in front
of each of us - the human kind

and and the next million million of years?
perhaps, it might just make a detour
to leave us nothing more than a cell
lying in water and the universal mind
on to his next wondrous plan