Wednesday, July 06, 2005

The Poetry Shed: Day 3

We began again by 10-minute warming up. Keep going, don't stop, don't revise. I began from the phrase "the naked eye," which is the title of a very ambitious novel by Yoko Tawada.

What exactly is the naked eye?
As you go through all the different places--
cities, forests, beaches, deserts, mountains, farming villages--
the first thing you are exposed to at each place is its light.

The light that illuminates each place.
I have always been struck by the fact
that all the lights on this planet originated, in one way or the other,
from the sun--our ultimate light provider!

What accompanies the light is the air
that envelops your whole being,
or your whole being-there
at this particular moment
and at this particular spot.

And the air as a local masse moves and we
call it wind. The light comes to you with the wind.
The light comes to you, as if, on the wind.

Your eye is the receptor of light, and at the same time
it is exposed to the wind
that makes its surface dry
that it feels threatened
like a little animal
of uncertain kind.
Naked.