Neither here nor there: it lies between the rock
of the ground and the hard place of the sky.
Unrolling from your feet, the road loops twice
and then disappears behind it.

Beware the ides of vision.
The knife dividing the viewer from the scene
is the same that cuts the beauty from the beholder.

The cheerful spiritualist lifts her arms and raises the table.
You hear the knocks and try to read the leaves,
but the planchette always comes to rest on Maybe,
and nothing changes; nothing can change.

And that figure halfway down, approaching us:
Who is he? Too far away to tell.
The partial overcast sends pieces of sunlight
strobing across the hedgerows behind him.

He stands closer now, half in shadow,
a middle-aged man leaning on a stick.
Almost known to you: the half-lit scene,
the ambiguous viewer, the ambivalent light.

October 24, 1995

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