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My Sight Is But Half Blind
by Rula Shin
Looking up at the sky when I was small
Is no different than looking upon it
Now as I am tall
Though trees seem slightly lower
And lakes a bit more shallow
The oceans never felt deeper or wider
Than they do now in my mindÂ’s eye
Today appears and disintegrates
Before it can metamorphose into NOW
The day after taunts me with my past
As I hold my breath for later
Or blow it all before the momentÂ’s pass
I need just a fighting chance
To make it through this self-spun web
For in spite of its colorful entanglement
The distant light in black and white
Reveals the illusion beneath the color
My sight is but half blind
And in my dying dreams
The other half wakes and watches
Ever present and alert
In this very moment all I do is hope
For a hopeless hope is more than
Any other I can ever have
In the wake of my liberated sight
Half blind
12/12/2004
Author's Note: This piece came to me when my friend Ashok Sharda challenged me to create a drawing of my own, beginning from a blank page and letting my hand lead me. It was difficult at first and I sat with that blank sheet a while thinking and drawing, then throwing out and then again thinking etc. Finally, I decided to do just exactly what he had said. I put another blank piece of paper in front of me, put the pencil down, and thoughtlessly drew a line…then another…then my idea began to form as I drew. After I had the rough draft I redid it a few times for clarity and proportion and here it is and I am happy, not because I find it to be a masterpiece (hahaha) but because I do find it to be meaningful. This, for me, is the beauty of creation, the meaning that unfolds during creation, as well as that which it retains.
Posted on 12/12/2004
Copyright © 2024 Rula Shin
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 12/12/04 at 11:39 PM Scary drawing that nicely compliments the poem and vise versa. In this world, we are all often half blind due to the stresses and diversions of life's responsibilities, occassionally broken by brief moments of epiphany. I guess the trick is not to get caught in our own web. |
| Posted by Ashok Sharda on 12/13/04 at 02:52 AM ‘I need just a fighting chance
To make it through this self-spun web
For in spite of its colorful entanglement
The distant light in black and white
Reveals the illusion beneath the color’
This is all what we need, a fighting chance. Who gives us this fighting chance? The realization, the very SEEING of the nonseeing. Can one ever immerse in these colors realizing their falsity. When ‘The other half wakes and watches, Ever present and alert.
Stick to this awareness. This alert wakefulness is capable of making you SEE and BE through these illusory colorful ‘self-spun web’. One can attain clarity by just BEING, creating this link between all your centers, intellectual, emotional, mechanical and intuitive with your hand which tantamounts to attaining oneness without. This drawing is a creation emerging from this oneness without as well as within.
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| Posted by Mahassine Mir on 12/14/04 at 02:00 PM Rula, this is really great. "Today appears and disintegrates - Before it can metamorphose into NOW" ...
The drawing adds another dimension to the poem, and vice versa ... Jameel Jiddan !
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| Posted by Tom Goss on 12/14/04 at 05:32 PM I really like the drawing. It should be 10 feet high, to scare us into children. |
| Posted by Kara Hayostek on 12/16/04 at 03:14 AM The drawing is so cool! I wish it were a poster. I think u should u should have prints made of it (and give me one)
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| Posted by JD Clay on 03/16/05 at 05:49 AM I know a shaman who professes that our dream state is true reality, and our awake state is all an illusion. The more I debate the subject with him the harder it becomes to defend the contrary.
Nevertheless, you’ve solved the dilemma of half-blindedness (is that a word) and so eloquently support this notion with the statement, “In the wake of my liberated sight”. Yes, liberated, whether half or whole.
I also see the web as the emotional self. A web easily spun and so delicately deceptive.
Good stuff, Rula.
pe4ce... |
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