THE MOTION OF THOUGHT first appeared in George Scarbrough’s book, Summer So-Called (E. P. Dutton, 1956) and was republished in the large collection, New and Selected Poems (Iris Press, 1977.) The poem was analyzed in detail by Forrest Gander in his critical essay, The Inflorescence of Variety: Four Iconoclastic Southern Poets (New Orleans Review, Vol 22, Nos 3&4, Fall/Winter 1996, pp 105-116.)

THE MOTION OF THOUGHT

Enoch, exulting his fingers
As they had been knives, that think-wound shadow,
Dimpling preceding silence after
With the least record ever set upon any mountain,
Him I remember, brain-webbed only
As salamanders sporting red trees under their necks,
Corally exterior, the nerve hatching
Outside the mind as breath feels outside the body,
Touching with cool vagueness
Whatever outlaid mentation hinged
Upon his borders: Enoch, stabbing blue
Air with five swords boldly,
His head laced with shining elder nebulae,
Swinging the mountain in great curves:
Him, I remember, in tittering trees,
And fire spaced, and leaves taking the reduction of fire
Under his wild great fingers, digging the dead knife
Somewhere coldly lying, unespied.
Him, him, I remember. God,
If sometime away I push five holes in syenite air,
Dreaming a long glitter,
May no return of previous me abort my blithe being,
Playing with live fire, laughing, laughing,
Laughing, upon a child’s mountain; but in peripteries
Feel the motion of thought only
As Enoch, whom I remember.

© George Scarbrough, 1956, 1977, 1996.

George Scarbrough comments: "Enoch was a "preacher," a road-running idiot, we said, who would, if asked, offer up a prayer for an ingrown toenail. He was dangerous, we said. He was actually neither, I realized, when I saw him burn away leaves to find his lost pocketknife. He was a thinker, albeit of a different kind, one willing to cast his blessing. I "feel" for him now."