Committee

Men have through all ages sat in councils
And sometimes around tables, Homeric
Men. But mostly standing. And Indians.
We are in a circle too, and talking.
But we choose backache.
We choose the green blackboard.
We choose the pipe to be chewed,
The cough drop, the bitter lemon;
We choose the coil of red cellophane
Around the finger. We choose Paper
Topics or the Regional Report.
We choose the sinus carrying Nile
Sludge in the foreground against
Courtyard brick. We choose backache
And all the windows closed.
We choose a report from the other
Committee. We choose all afternoon
At the helm where there is no wheel
For the pilot, where no one is scrambling
For the creation of a wheel,
Where the table is not a ship.
We choose silence, hearing the talkers
Talk, hearing the garrulous swallow
Up and flood those who do not talk.
Sometimes we get up as if we’d decided
Where to send our frogmen or how to scale
The wall. Sometimes we get up as if
We’d got something done. A hair
Or two dropped on a backwoods frog pond.