Poetry arises out of the unknown and speaks to what we do know. ~ W.S. Merwin
Contemporary American poet W.S. Merwin thus affirms what philosopher-poet Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi penned eight centuries ago in his poem “Two Kinds of Intelligence”:
There are two kinds of intelligence.
One is that acquired by a child at school
from books and teachers, new ideas and memorization.
Your intelligence may become superior to others,
but retaining all that knowledge is a burden.
You who are so busy searching for knowledge
must be a preserving tablet, but the preserved tablet
is the one who has gone beyond all this.For the other kind of intelligence is the gift of God:
its fountain is deep within the soul.
When the water of God-given knowledge surges from the breast,
it never stagnates or becomes impure.
And if its way to the outside is blocked, what harm is there?
For it flows continually from the house of the heart.
The acquired intelligence is like the conduits
which run into the house from the streets:
if those pipes become blocked, the house is bereft of water.
Seek the fountain within yourself.
In an illuminative 2009 interview with journalist Bill Moyers, Merwin speaks about the importance of listening deeply to “the fountain within yourself” – the other kind of intelligence – so near to poets, yet present in all thinking human beings.
Wisdom, resounding through the ages.
English translation of “Two Kinds of Intelligence” by Camille and Kabir Helminski, Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance.
Thumbnail image by Lucie Grenier.
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W.S. Merwin has recently been named the Poet Laureate of the United States.