There Are Philosophers Everywhere
David Kirby
Nor have I met one who wasn't willing to share his or hers.
All you have to do is toss your chin and say, “What's your job like?”
Today a taxi driver said, “Look at the other guy’s wheels”—
not his eyes or hands, because he could be looking one way
and turning the other. There you are daydreaming, and the light
changes, and you look at the other guy’s wheels, and they tell you
everything you need to know. It’s better to think too much than
too little, to be afraid of imaginary snakes than to ignore real ones.
Thinking can make you believe that your neighbors are space aliens
or that there is a God above us and a devil below, but most
of the time it’s just itself. A week earlier, I was reading John Dewey
in a diner and chatting with a crossing guard who said kids want
to be good but don’t pay attention (“well, half of them don’t”),
although he can see them take in the world bit by bit and process it.
Dewey had just said the same thing: “As with the advance
of an army, all gains from what has been already effected
are periodically consolidated and always with a view to what
is to be done next.” Joni Mitchell says if you’re not telling stories,
you’re sleeping through life. Over time, says the crossing guard,
the kids change, often in ways he never expects.
David Kirby's collection The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2007. Kirby is the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement of London called “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense.” His latest poetry collection is More Than This. He teaches English at Florida State University.