High — Summary

Dave BontaCheerful

High, I desire the writ of the Lord, answer a judge with three pints of wine and take by mistake for supper a hand with strawberry on it.

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The title does a lot of work here. "High" can mean elevated in a spiritual sense, or intoxicated, and the poem slides between the two. The speaker seems to be in a woozy, dreamlike state where grand, solemn things, like "the writ of the Lord" and a judge's authority, sit right next to ordinary ones, like wine and supper.

Nothing quite connects in a logical way. The speaker desires a divine decree, answers a judge with "three pints of wine," and then makes an odd mistake: taking a hand with strawberry on it for supper. That last image is funny and a little unsettling at once. It suggests confused senses, where a hand and food blur together.

The mood is playful, loose, and slightly surreal. The speaker doesn't seem alarmed by any of it. Judging by the imagery, the poem captures how a high mind mixes up the sacred, the legal, and the edible, and finds the mix both absurd and appealing.

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