A Looking Glass

I call it a looking glass
but it is really

a ‘now’ awareness state.
How I notice now,

to begin with,
is more of how

urgently I notice . . .
Coming in

as if it were empty,
then it fills

with images,
followed by

a murmuring

of inner audiences’ comments.
I selectively listen

to short blurbs,
words towards identification.
These are familiar voices
but somehow

vacant to the task.
Not bored . . .

but monotonously precise,
somewhat the way

stale exhale
can fill a colorful balloon

into visual delight.
But still . . .

flat out . . .

this is a looking glass.
I lack the depth of field

behind what I see.
I gain little permission

beyond acknowledgment.
No flair for response.
No furthered say-so

for engagement.
Only highlighted examples

for bystanders’ rights.

Oh . . . there is emotion
as much as

there is atmosphere,
much like

that faded odors still circulate

in desolate space
yet still buoyant though faint

as though innocence

would also persist.
It is not like taking a position

as a perception,
for just looking out . . .
(as if soul had a view),
and possibly some say

in a passer-by way.
Still . . . I reason it to be . . .

a looking glass.
Saying for the rest of me

that is not engaged
like a bar of soap.
Well, like that part of the bar

without surface,
and therefore no likelihood

for the sense of task or touch.
Just kept in

an emotionally unchanging means
where no movement

is a livelihood conserved.
Preserved beyond

this sense of a looking glass.
This looking glass as personage
never asks

how I feel about anything.
Just as emotion

becomes stasis,
it then presents as a frame
on the looking glass itself.
Not that I am ever looking at
but baited to look through,
beckoned as it were . . .
to long for . . .

by seductive sights,
almost to pine,
as if the looking glass

were to be a marvel,
only in an emotional

enchantment away.

None of this really

is ever to be said with words.
No description could suffice.
No explanation

could cause a surmise.
Weep with me
and we will call what we do,
solemnly ‘being quiet’,

if ever we are asked.
That we are together with this
is that we are really alone.
And what I have said just now,
I have said in your place
as if you had said it to yourself.
Just as murmurs . . .

that arose from the ash.
We are but ever fading

as a never present now,

into this looking glass . . .