So I'm going to close with two poems.
The first one is called On Looking.
And the last is actually a little essay called On Seeing.
I thought that would make interesting bookends.
The essay is short.
Is it time?
OK.
On looking.
It's got an epigraph from Roland Barthes.
On Looking.
In order to see a photograph well
it is best to look away or close your eyes.
What do you think, Tim?
[LAUGHS] OK.
One.
A man turning his head, a stream with rocks in it,
pine trees grow out of a crag, a book about x, a man
wears a slight smile, a palm frond,
a museum of fading things, the water between trees.
Two.
Two people might choose to stand close together,
one mood transferred to another--
a woman in white with a scarf.
The rocks in a book look like clouds.
They are looking at the same thing--
snow boughs laden and monochrome.
Light travels along a forearm.
Three.
No sky, no sky whatsoever.
Reflections are smudged and vertical.
Two people are merely shapes, a view from a peak.
She looks to him for a cue.
A serious man wishes he were elsewhere.
She is thin.
Her sleeve ribbed with folds.
A shadow interacts with another.
Four.
The accidental is natural.
The page is shining and full.
Image opposite image, the hatted man, the friendly gaze,
a brown hand, a speckled rock.
Where will they go?
A person looks away.
They are always leaving.
Five.
They are flickering stars through a telescope,
a museum of lost things.
They are mirrors laden and monochrome
still unravished smudged boughs of X--
like beholding the mute of a galaxy.
It is both of them leaving.
It is like looking at both of them leaving.
I should say, PS to that poem is that my dear friend, Brian,
and I have these little poetry workshop days.
And we write from prompts.
And this was a poem that was begun on one of those days.
So thank you, Brian.