Fleeting Ghosts of Feeling

There are days my eye works better.
It sees light and juxtaposition and color
like a dance – perfect, or gloriously imperfect
moments.

It sees everything, without thinking,
a second sight. something beyond knowledge,
A certainty in seeing. Capturing images, emotions,
perfectly.

And the rest of the time? When the eye
is not its best? The words and images
are technically perfect. Knowledge at
work.

but nothing more. No life.
Nothing that leaps from the page
and makes people look, listen,
feel.

Enough, but not enough. And each time
I spout inanimate perfection,
I feel I have failed. Not in the doing.
In the feeling,

a thing out of control. Emotions
that tease me, too deep for me to feel
except the now and then days when they
emerge

to tease me. Letting me know just
how good I can be. But only in partnership
with the fleeting ghosts
of feeling.

About this poem

About writing and painting and photographing. Expression. And its link to feelings. At least for me.

The picture was taken at the Hancock Shaker Village.

Tom