Random Acts of Poetry: The Seeing

L.L. here. Thinking about seeing.

Artist and teacher Corita Kent once said, "It takes practice for us to recover this ability to see, or before that, the gift of wanting to see." Do I want to see? Do you? Kent says that to do so we must not judge and dismiss (I know what that thing is--I've seen it a hundred times), but rather look at the world the way a child looks "as if always for the first time."

Maybe our big-boy and big-girl lives have interrupted that possibility. We move from task to task with a sense of false urgency, missing the chance to see, taste, touch what stands before us. Or maybe we have wanted to see, but school, work or even, sadly, church urges us to shut out distractions for the sake of simplicity, safety or conformity.

I am not saying that simplicity, safety and conformity don't have their place. Sometimes they do. But sometimes the world needs us to see, to shake things up with the discoveries implicit in seeing. Sometimes it's not just the world that needs this. It is our dried up, tired out, stressed out souls.

So this past week, I asked people to close their eyes and see. Here's what bubbled up from grassy places, back seats, haylofts, sun and shadows...

Beth's Back from the Clinic

In velvet darkness
punctuated by
pinprick lights
from scattered huts
A pregnant mother
walks.
Swinging lantern
in her husband's grip
sheds dim swaying light.
Enough to see their way
along an African road.

I close my eyes and I can still see that couple.

I sit, enveloped in velvet darkness peace,
on the torn backseat
of a white pick-up,
My son asleep,
His head on my shoulder,
His swollen leg across my lap,
I can still feel hardened cast
and gauze wrap,
Solid and rough under my fingers.

I close my eyes and I can still hear
His breathing,
deep and even,
And the quiet remarks
of the men in the front seat,
As we pass expectant pair,
She's on her way
to the clinic.
Think she'll make it?

Excerpt of Katrina's The Hayloft

I remember, too,
some days
when the sun would not shine
and the rain would pour down
pitter-patter on roof of tin
and the only light
shone dimly
from single bulb above.

excerpt of Laura's The Long Ride Home

I close my eyes and I can still see
trees passing by through windows.
Dappled lights—leaf shadows—
pass over faces, like hands
dangling ribbons of sunshine.

excerpt of nAncY's ~eyes closed~

i close my eyes and i can still see things calling out to me.
the crusty brown crumbs on the not-so-white counter
along with the rinsed and stacked dishes

excerpt of Joelle's poetic vignette Pinto Beans

I am centered, one with Life, when I cook beans. The 20 lb. (minus the few I’ve used) gunnysack of pintos rests like a baby on my hip. I cuddle it a few moments, molding its rough mounds in hands that look just like my Grandma’s. Reach in and let the individual beans sift through my fingers, lifting palmfuls to the counter. Cool, dry, round, hard, dead yet so full of promise...

Nikki's A Question for the Man on the Highway and an excerpt of Never Out of Mind...

I close my eyes and I can still see
through the gray-lit darkness of a starless California night
and the ubiquitous streaks on my windshield,
your elongated shape taking recognizable form in the lane
imperfectly revealed by the distant white glare of a streetlamp.

It's all wrong. You are out of place between the reflecting stripes
on the still-warm asphalt, your dark-panted leg twisted,
your arms akimbo, your foot in a posture no ballerina would dare,
your unmoving face melting into a luminous pool
on the pocked black earth.

I am in motion, yet you remain unmoved
I see the lights draw near behind and beside me,
help arriving, flashing a warning it is too late for you to heed.
I hear the wailing siren and grip the wheel until my knuckles blanch.
My eyes blur with salty wetness, you hear nothing, see nothing.

Which of life's curves so tangled your mind
that you chose to wring the life from your body tonight,
in the middle of Highway 10, just east of Los Angeles,
where I, young and carefree, on the way to laugh and dance,
would find you lying still, grow suddenly old and weep?

"Never Out of Mind" excerpt:

I close my eyes and I can still see…
home.
It isn't so far away, it lurks just out of waking sight.
It's there, unchanged, as it was, right now.
Do you see the huge magnolia overhanging the busy street,
dropping its curious seed pods and fragrant blossoms,
on the dandelion-dotted grass.
There’s the avocado tree prostrate in an invitation to climb,
and the roses Dad cultivates and aphids devour?

Excerpt of Erica's poetic vignette Grandmother's Kitchen, 1977

The kitchen is quiet, I look at my grandmother and wait for her answer, the triangle sandwich waits on the plate. Jacob shifts back and forth on the porch, looks from my face to my grandmother's, drops his eyes to the other half of my triangle sandwich. My feet bounce up and down on the step-stool. Riiip, Sliiip goes the sound as my skin sticks and pulls from the pebbled vinyl seat. The pink band aids look garish against my skin. In the silent kitchen, the noise of the Cicadas creeps in to fill the quiet.

Full List of Participants:
Beth's Back from the Clinic
Rebekah's Little Girl
Katrina's The Hayloft
Laura's The Long Ride Home
Rain's Innocence Hill
nAncY's ~eyes closed~
Joelle's Pinto Beans
Hope4Today's I Close My Eyes and I Can Still See
Tina's The Journey
Sarah's Life is Not All About Forward Motion
LL's The Return
Nikki's Seeing Detail, Writing it Down
Liz's I Close My Eyes
Unknown Contributor's vignette Pink Frilly Underpants
Joy's Seeing
Erica's Grandmother's Kitchen, 1977
Ann's Make Pearls

RELATED:
LL's Stand Still, Let Go, and See
Katrina's I'm Seeing, Noticing

Dark Berries photo by J. Barkat. Used with permission. Post written by L.L. Barkat.

NOTE: If you would like to participate in 'Random Acts of Poetry', just post a poem, on any topic, any day of the week, then let me know through the HCB contact form or on my personal blog. And we'll link to you on RAP Friday.

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