When I look at an iris
I don’t see eye to eye with it.
Not even if I crouch down
and level with it,
and stare at it.
For all its name,
all it can do is reflect the light.
Beautiful colours, but pointless and utterly blind.
Now my irises
have black holes into the space
that can suck up the light
and give that iris
its name and face.
Interface
is the only place
to face anything.
Inside is unfathomable –
you cannot plumb the depths from inside the sea.
Outside is unknowable –
you cannot know what you cannot perceive.
The only place
to know and see
is the interface –
the waves on the sea:
the drops of rain, creating the rings;
the sight and touch, embodying things;
the warmth and breath, infusing life;
the pull and press,
the push and strife.
At the interface
there is rough and rub
which, we have to face,
is the nub.
We erect fences around construction sites.
We put signs on fences.
Bright yellow warning signs, easy to see,
attention-grabbing
with screaming carmine letters:
“DANGER!
CONSTRUCTION SITE.
KEEP OUT
AND KEEP YOUR CHILDREN OUT!”
Construction sites are inherently dangerous.
Things change.
New things appear out of the dust and confront you unexpectedly.
Old things break and fall
and hit you on the head if you are not careful.
They are like that.
Children have to be protected.
As you think of danger,
of all the unexpected, deadly things that can happen to them,
your breath catches and your heart skips a beat.
You erect fences
and put signs on these fences.
But it is never enough.
The world changes so fast now-a-days
that you can’t keep up.
New things appear daily.
The things you don’t understand can hurt you
and your children.
As the future is being constructed,
you have to build more and more fences
and put up more and more signs
screaming:
“DANGER!
CONSTRUCTION SITE.
KEEP OUT
AND KEEP YOUR CHILDREN OUT!”
Eventually, you end up in a cage,
crouching in the corner, teeth bared,
terrified, but ready to protect your children.
It’s all for them, to keep them safe, to keep them near.
The world under construction is fenced off,
blocked off by the screaming signs.
That’s when they leave.
They climb the fence quietly, stealthily,
trying not to hurt your feelings
or break through the fence
with all their might, screaming defiance.
In the final count, it doesn’t matter.
They leave.
They have no choice.
Their lives are there,
in the changing world being constructed for and by them.
With pity or hatred in their hearts
they leave you in your cage.
Anger turns to dejection.
They will visit.
They will bring your grandchildren,
ignoring the signs:
“DANGER!
CONSTRUCTION SITE.
KEEP OUT
AND KEEP YOUR CHILDREN OUT!”
As you walk without a shadow of doubt, you enter the valley of the shadow of death. You will fear no evil, for you will be that evil, never seeing itself or the world, but seeing your reflection upon the face of the world.
I think it is vitally important to learn from history.
George Santayana once said that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
I can add that one of the first things we learn from the past is that those who repeat it are doomed.
As the tide goes out
and the interface between the land and the sea is laid bare,
the soggy mud reflects the majestic sky
so clearly,
so deeply,
so poignantly…
Tears well up in my eyes.
I feel at one with the mud,
but not with the sky.
Forgotten rooms, abandoned spaces, full of rubbish. Rubbish that drives you mad. Leave it there in the dark. Leave it there to rot – ugly feelings, broken relationships, things you had to forget in order to forgive… Lock the door and throw away the key. Phew… Isnt’t it better? You can start with a clean slate, clear conscience, honest gaze. Aren’t you nice? You can be happy now. You can be whole and pure. You can flower, a beautiful snow-drop, untouched by the rotting rubbish. Oh, but it gets in through the roots, it fills your fruit with poison of all that festered there, in the dark, in the abandoned spaces. You try desperately: keeping your thoughts pure and your living clean… but the poison coursing through your veins makes you into a deadly nightshade. All that you touch withers and dies, it turns into rubbish. Rubbish that drives you mad. You build them up, layer upon layer, abandoned spaces, forgotten rooms. How many layers now? How many more can you build, before you realise that you can never start over, never be clean, never become a snow-drop… before you scream, shrill and ugly, through tears and despair, bending over the withered remains of another broken relationship. And there is no way back, no way to clean out the spaces that feed your roots, for they are the forgotten rooms, the rooms that you locked and threw away the key.
Time is full of voids,
empty spaces devoid of substance or meaning.
You think,
– Where has the time gone?
and there is no answer.
There is evidence:
worn out shoes, wrinkles, bigger digits on the calendar and your pay slips…
But the time collapsed, like an empty balloon, and there is nothing there but a thin film of facts.
Time is supported by a skeleton.
Big, public ribs – wars and discoveries:
a burning child running down a dusty street,
tears in the eyes of a woman who can see again,
a man stepping in front of a tank,
another – stepping out of a shuttle into the void,
facing overpowering odds with the same grim determination.
Small, private bones:
sitting on a curb, waiting to be picked up when everyone else is gone,
feeling your hand on my back while making love – so big and warm,
holding my child, crying in pain and joy,
screaming in fear and frustration at the sight of love slipping away,
laughing helplessly at a silly joke repeated again and again.
Moments of loss and gain,
kindness and thoughtlessness,
Moments that stretch time and give it shape.
Time has bones,
bones that keep you up,
bones that stick in your throat
and make you choke.
