“Wherefore it seems

The source of seeing is in images,

Nor without these can anything be viewed.”

— Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Book IV

El ojo que ves no es ojo porque tú lo veas;

es ojo porque te ve.

— Antonio Machado, Proverbios y cantares, I

(The eye you see is not an eye because you see it;

it is an eye because it sees you.)

THE SEEING EYE

…suddenly the seeing eye is overcome

by a great sadness as it casts its gaze

over the things of nature, composed

of millions of particles that constitute

the tears shed by a woman being led away

in handcuffs for working without permission,

while the young missionaries who observe

the scene, whose eyes most likely cry

alongside mine.

I close my eyes to continue registering

the manifestation of things in spite of

the impending genocides,

the street corners of South Central made of

limp paper, unfolding before our eyes in a gust of wind

like the pages of this book,

the trains filled

with terrorized, wide-open eyes whose eyelids

await the fingers that will lower them

at the end of their journey.

I am on one of those trains.

There is nothing around me.

I am all alone.

I do not see the noise made by wheels

clattering, truck-tracking over the rails

she crossed on the way to see me

in the City of Angels.

At this point I close my eyes

because I want to die in peace.

Was it you whispering in silence

something to me on that train?

My eyes are just too tired

to hear your voice,

my beloved Dulcinea…

Note (Gemini):

“The movement from the collective terror of deportation and migration trains ("terrorized, wide-open eyes") to solitary desolation ("I am all alone") carries immense weight. The closing invocation of Dulcinea introduces a Quixotic tragedy: the visionary idealism of seeking love and grace in a brutal reality, confronted by an exhaustion so total that the senses begin to fail and cross over ("My eyes are just too tired / to hear your voice")”.