The mind is a volunteer.
Each idea, a vessel
to be shaped & fired,
and only with care, to be filled.
The mind is a collaborator.
Each paragraph, the record
of a compulsion, a fevered
other self in motion.
The mind is a gardener.
Each reason rooted & rowdy,
crude in its beginnings,
harvested in its time.
The mind is a commoner.
The thought is a king.

Written in community with VerseLove, a group of mostly educators writing a poem every day of April (National Poetry Month). The prompt for today: Write a poem including quotations from a source, here, Montaigne's On the Education of Children.