The Thing About
The thing about
saying the thing
about any thing
is it obscures.
All sense-making
does, except
those examples
I will exclude
here. Ignore
what you do
not need, sure,
to embrace
the singled-out
thing about
the thing.
The eye gets
grabbed when
it looks, gets
fondled, felt up,
falls in love
with one facet,
one sparkly patch
from the oceanic
fields of things
that exist, that
were formed
before you saw
them, long before
your eyes were
born. The birches
on one street,
knock-kneed
and ridged
as unpeeled
carrots, or the
funny foliage
before that
freeway exit,
high ends and
vines folded over
the center, like
fingers raised
in praise of
heavy metal,
a fist with horns,
a tailless Y in
sign language.
The thing about
attentiveness--
the more you
notice, the more
you look, and the
more you look
the more you
will have to
overlook, as you
have already.
I fell in love with your knock-kneed birches.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I got scared by sheep birch...
Happy Halloween!
I too love those birches and the thing about this poem is that i used to say that a lot and not anymore...maybe there is nothing outstanding there anymore..happy happy halloween Hannah!
ReplyDeleteI am guilty of saying the thing about...
ReplyDeleteI never thought much about "the thing about," but the whole perception process interests me. So how and why we choose this or that
ReplyDelete"one sparkly patch
from the oceanic
fields of things"
is something to chew on. Also, ditto Kathleen on knock-kneed birches.