We, who stand intent upon beholding, See:²
We blink off old eyelids for new ways of Seeing—³
A Recognition: the known appears fully itself—
And more itself than one knew!⁴
Sight is a Museum of things seen.⁵
Every picture has its Shadows
And it has some source of Light:
Blindness, Blindness and Sight!⁶
Perception of an object Costs
Precise the object’s Loss.⁷
One shape after another of unimaginable
Beauty signals an intention to provide, for nothing,
For looking merely—with Beauty, more Beauty!⁸
A wonderful View arranges itself, wherever
We Walk or Sit—into a Perfect Balance:⁹
An everlasting vision of the
Everchanging View!¹⁰
¹ Christina Pugh, The Staircase
² Dante Alighieri tr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Inferno
³ Harryette Mullen, Shedding Skin
⁴ Denise Levertov, Matins
⁵ Wallace Stevens, Examination of the Hero in a Time of War
⁶ Joni Mitchell, Shadows and Light
⁷ Emily Dickinson, Perception of an Object
⁸ Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
⁹ Ursula K. Le Guin, Old Music and the Slave Women
¹⁰ Carol King, Tapestry