Cognition and Consciousness

Everyone has some subdivision

Discomfits them in conversation.

Some don’t like breaks along lines of race,

Others squirm when gender enters class.

Some don’t want to speak of the other

Species dividing up the planet.

A few can get uncomfortable

Debating body and soul; many

Would rather not get into questions

Of gods as ghosts or nature-nurture.

Do you know the story of Mary

Versus poor Martha, of how to serve

Attendance on a man who may be

God? Do you know Rose Red and Snow White,

The dragon or the chicken, chicken

Or the egg, the yolk of language pursed

In the white of the void? For today

The awkward subdivision will be

The story of Cognition versus

Consciousness. One day there was no life

On Earth. The next day, what do you know?

From the beginning, the chemicals

Seem to have been possessed of or by

Volition. But when did life first move

By means of a stratagem, a cline,

Some earliest form of cognition?

And is there a straight line from that point

Through fungal, rhizomal, neural nodes

In networks, or did such cognition

Require repeated reinvention?

One day, Cognition went to the well

To draw the pure, clear, sacred water,

But once at the well, Cognition felt

Weak with bitter lonesomeness and wept.

The tears fell into the well, blooming

Across Cognition’s sad reflection,

Becoming Consciousness. And a voice

Called out from the bottom of the well,

As there is no Consciousness without

Both reflection and the calling out

To Cognition, Come to my rescue,

For I am drowning here in the dark.

But Cognition was either fearful

Or not lonely enough anymore.

To this day, if you go to the well,

You will find them, Cognition curled up

By the lip and often staring down

The dark hole from which Consciousness calls.