The Look
We all want to be free.
This human journey,
towards the place where we unshackle
the shell and find
truth,
let the air touch us, really touch us,
make up the distance between the molecules and our skin,
the moment where we feel again, really feel,
without consciousness of others’ gaze,
and reclaim our innocent breathing.
I am almost free when I see him,
my eyes are ember glown, flecked with life
only the way they can be when we let self’s frettings fall,
how an eye sees, sees, when there’s no gap between,
no contortion, push of trying or bend to fit,
the glimmer of is uncasked.
He is free too, cartwheeling and gamboling, feet on the festival grass,
the snow of his teeth, flying locks of blonde mane.
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And he sees me seeing him, and it is ironic that in this,
he is unfreed.
My eye dragging the witness back,
creating again the gap between foot and earth,
between the spark that whispers
in the depths of belly that travels to our lips as sigh,
between the unburdened cheek that lifts buoyant as a buoy,
the unfurling of joy like a levy breaking,
that can’t help to fall, nothing to snag against.
But where there was sensation’s free tumble, now
the current snags against a question,
“Am I safe?”
“What does this other eye see in me?”
“What do you want from me?”
My free eye’s perception,
its clear seeing gift given by being, ah, how being can see!
bare and open as space,
rests upon reality,
as real and alive as mine, snug with its edges,
and I smile and feel joy, joy for his joy, joy for his freedom, as real sings the praises of real,
but this singing then… removes his?
Shrinks down in its exposure.
And why?
Why when the breath of life flashes do we hide,
crumple like paper,
just because another is looking.
