There is often little time for reflection though the hours never cease to pile up. Much is thought of, many things are remembered, but little is reflected upon. There is a difference between thinking and reflecting; one of them presents a plan or an image, which is transformed according to feeling, or exterior phenomena that seeks an end, or a means to an end; the other is the transformation of thought without end, it simply looks, it watches the worry come and go, plans arise and finish. When you step back from a wall, you can see how high it is, but when you are very close, you must grasp onto something because there is no way to see where you are. So reflecting is a way to stand back and see how far the thought goes, while thinking holds to the thought as long as it wants. Reflection shows that thoughts do not control you, while thinking always seeks a thought to control. Douglas Thornton
Unpublished Poetry Series: The Bowl-Carver by Douglas Thornton The Bowl-Carver Closeness of the night, Figure of what is intimate, Turn the strange effects Of elusive image to dreams We shall never keep, And beauty of the eye unfolds From all misfortune, Through measure of love, or fairer Sort of sight attained, A hope that in despondent mind Memory will see The action missed. All things are made By revealing space Where nothing was, like when the moon Comes up, the further As its form seems to drift away, The night deepening With inner light admits a joy Seldom incomplete. Douglas Thornton