Seeing - Tomas de Faoite

What does seeing the light mean?
Being enlightened? Seeing a vision
Not made of my own seeing?

The face of God in the dark
Left behind by the rays of the sun?

Seeing Gandhi wearing a monocle
On an Indian carpet during meditation?

Leaving the body briefly? No, no.
I have seen the light
And it was so ordinary.

I looked long and hard at an elder tree
Until its boughs turned pink.
I looked long and hard at ivy
In a ditch until it turned blue.
And I said, forget the master-

Pieces, forget Van Gogh, Vermeer.
Who needs hands when we can paint
With our eyes; the light,
The delight of seeing things
As they are, were, and will be.


Tomas DE FAOITE
First published in GREEN FATHER,
Poezie-uitgeverij WEL