Poem Task

In neuroimaging experiments,
The default-mode network swims into view
When the instructions are task-negative.

Give the volunteer a task to complete
While placed inside the imaging machine
And the default-mode network submerges.

And what does the default mode network do?
Mind wandering, remembering one’s past
Experiences, musing on others’

Mental states, envisioning the future,
And processing language. Suspiciously,
The list resembles the inchoate state,

The darkness on the face of the waters
That are beginning to surface a poem.
But is composing a poem not a task?

Shouldn’t the default-mode network sink back
Into the waves as the creative brain,
The task-solving brain, starts its voice-over?

Has any grant-fueled neuroscientist
Ever given subjects no task except
To think of something like a poem in there?

At what point, if ever, does that network
Hand off to, say, the salience network
And then dive beneath the waves while the poem

Is being composed? If the poet rhymes?
If the poet is yearning after form?
As soon as phrases start to coalesce?

Well, there’s a task—find neuroimaging
Studies on the brains of idle subjects
Staring into nothing, composing poems.