Jenne’ Andrews: Intrepid Eye, Majestic World

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How beautiful the eyeball, flecked

with the residual color

of the terrain—nightfall

in the blue canyons, goldenrod

selvage of sea cliff. Sun-kissed–

the amplitude of the turning earth.

It is we who slip out of view

of the platinum eye of the moon,

the blazing and ardent stare

of the sun.

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And think of it, making love;

the lover’s darkly intense eye

half-closed in the swoon

of desire…

the tears brimming at its edges,

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above all, inescapable day

filling the eye to overflowing–

the panorama of living things

against the pale slate

of morning.

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We say that we feast our eyes

upon the Other, the opacity

of the horizon; sentinels,

we look and discern;

is the heart obedient to the eye

or the reverse?

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On-living, I claim

the visible; I lock it into a cache

of imagery denoting the world; I imagine

the explorer’s gaze,

unflinching, at the polar seas

or filled with the sunset–

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Cortez or Coronado, astounded

by the red bluffs, the tender sweep

of the desert vista—how storied

sleep then rescues us, drawing down

the shades lightly—

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or that we see in concert

with the plenitude of touch—

remarkable, that we name and dream,

envisioning even

in the crepuscule, even

it is said, at the moment

when breath releases

the spent body,

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when the haggard will

importuned by death

lets go, and the animate “I”–

that sensate cluster of heartbeat,

vision and yearning

disperses into evening air.

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copyright 2015 Jenne’ Andrews