Scribe
Scribe
2017
From Whence Do We Look
From whence do we look
as brushstroke and brush
of vital spirit
Life is art
Art is the looking that becomes the seeing
It is the reflection that is false
but by its falseness truth is known
Smoke and mirrors
of who we want to be
as who we are revealing more
That image before us:
upturned nose, furrowed brow,
rotating neck from cheek to cheek,
panning the outer world
for the inner world
of reality respiring Nature
beyond the nature
of sky, earth and evolution
We groom and primp
for adequate presentation
but wonder who we are, really
On display and fearing,
fearing inadequacy
fearing this … fearing that
and the other thing
in this puff-of-smoke existence
that dopes us up on
character play and pretense
made solid by rehearsal
and the memorizing of lines
Where does make believe end,
real begin,
what is and what is not
and what is not not what is not?
The looking that is looking to see,
actually see
the shimmers inside the tremors
of Creation; the hearing sight—
where the feeling resounds
in the bones of being,
sees in moments of seeing…
Creation confused by looking
as a process of starts and stops,
beginnings … endings;
duration created by imagination—
the straining of looking
trying to cognize the eternal
that only seeing can catch
Can catch—
in that image before us
of upturned nose, furrowed brow,
rotating neck from cheek to cheek
Can catch—
in that critical mirror dissection
in that quizzical puzzlement
that wipes frown into smile
on the face of respiring Nature
beyond the nature
of sky, earth and evolution.
—Thinning of the Veils (Work in Progress)
Copyright © Carl Hitchens 2017
Thursday, May 4, 2017