Yesterday, two women told me,
'I see you',
In unrelated conversational moments of candor,
Amid the intensity of discussions,
About work or about love.
A colleague and a friend,
Both brilliant,
Two separate well-placed bodyblows
To the act that I carry
That no-one knows me or sees me;
No-one loves me;
And no-one cares.
A takedown, sleeper, blitzkrieg move,
Came waiting at a light,
This morning on my way to work.
I spied and honked a friend
I hadn't seen in months.
She rushed me, from the street,
Through the passenger window
And stretched across the seat,
To kiss me, mwah, against my cheek.
So that later now, as I walk to lunch,
With drafts to read and check,
Across this parking lot,
I stop, winded and reeling,
As something inside tears and breaks,
An iceberg cracking
In this act that I carry
That no-one knows me or sees me;
No-one loves me;
And no-one cares.
And thinking of my friends,
Who know I have this thing, this act;
I think that I should stop
And write this down right now
Before I forget and start to think
That no-one knows me or sees me;
No-one loves me;
And no-one cares.
'I see you',
In unrelated conversational moments of candor,
Amid the intensity of discussions,
About work or about love.
A colleague and a friend,
Both brilliant,
Two separate well-placed bodyblows
To the act that I carry
That no-one knows me or sees me;
No-one loves me;
And no-one cares.
A takedown, sleeper, blitzkrieg move,
Came waiting at a light,
This morning on my way to work.
I spied and honked a friend
I hadn't seen in months.
She rushed me, from the street,
Through the passenger window
And stretched across the seat,
To kiss me, mwah, against my cheek.
So that later now, as I walk to lunch,
With drafts to read and check,
Across this parking lot,
I stop, winded and reeling,
As something inside tears and breaks,
An iceberg cracking
In this act that I carry
That no-one knows me or sees me;
No-one loves me;
And no-one cares.
And thinking of my friends,
Who know I have this thing, this act;
I think that I should stop
And write this down right now
Before I forget and start to think
That no-one knows me or sees me;
No-one loves me;
And no-one cares.
I LOVE this and I love you, and I see you, too!!xoAlly
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall a tradition in some African hunting tribes (!Kung?), when a hunter returns to his(her?) village they must stand just at the village boundary before entering the village. They must wait for someone "inside" to come along and say "I see you" . . . the point being that the hunter has been out in the wild (altered states, removed from civilization) living life as a predator, and he must be recognized by someone as "human" before he(she?) can enter the village. This moment of "recognition" seems a rather profound part of the innate human social contract that makes our species so particular.
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