Witnessed in the Convex Mirror

Witnessed in the Convex Mirror: Ravished in the Raw

Sifting the April sunlight for clues
I notice buds late to their blossoming,
a flaw that makes one realize
sunlight offers no clues; it only reveals
what already existed before its random
illumination. Its light may reveal buds
tardy to becoming plums, apricots,
or pears. The revelation may make
you sensitive to the plight of bees—
how chemicals and other human-made
pollution are destroying their habitat,
causing them, in turn, to destroy more
habitat. War always spirals, unless it
defeats itself, thus ends. But it’s rare
for an impulse to want to end itself—
that’s another truth for which sunlight
cannot take credit. To what one sees
when light touches down in front of you
(lightly like a plane controlled by the most
seasoned pilot, or darkly like a sudden
and unseasonal storm), only you can
decide your response. Don’t bother
hiring bodyguards—they wait on you
to decide your next move before sun-
set and you are left in the darkness
that, like April and sunlight, offers no
clues as to how to comprehend how you,
once praised by parents and teachers
for “brilliant potential,” now sift through
images of the unripened as if you
are among them, yet better than them

 

 

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Publishing Information

• From the author's The Ashbery Riff-Offs—where each poem begins with one or two lines from “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by John Ashbery.

Art Information

• "C-Curve—Anish Kapoor" © Dominic Alves; Creative Commons license.