looking up
my eyes thicken with light
the light thickens to sky
the sky thickens to black wings arcing
black wings thicken to a noun
the noun thickens into the word b i r d
the word dissolves into movement
a black streak across the sky
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This poem presents the experience of perception. We effortlessly perceive the things that appear
in our space. At least it seems that way. But many actions occur in the instant of perception. First,
something gets our attention, often through our senses. We see, hear, smell, touch, taste. Or we
have an idea. We become aware of something. In this poem, light in the sky and an object moving
through it. We name the thing perceived: bird. This stops the process of experiencing. We have
arrested the experience with a word. All of this happens in an instant. Then the freeze-frame
of the word encapsulating the experience dissolves and we are thrown back into pure perception.
Since perception occurs in the flash flow of an instant, I have chosen to use no punctuation or
in the capital letters in the poem..