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PrintDouble-Sided Pencil
In the vanishing moment
Double-Sided Pencil
The spastic bat snatched
a bug from right in front of
me, snug on a lawn chair,
smoking leftover cigarette butts,
thinking about words like:
minimal and surreal,
when the bat darted from the dark,
with the precision of a sword maker,
capturing its winged companion.
I think about the miracle of witnessing
that slivered bit of time in space:
no poem
printed in the finest
Buddhist manuscript,
no drawing,
even from an artist who uses a double-sided
pencil, never in need an eraser,
no words,
even from a writer who loves his art
like Sisyphus learned to love his rock,
no sculpture,
even those created with the purest material, perfect plaster, rarest wood,
most expensive metals; traditional nor modern,
no painting,
no, no painting,
no camera,
digital, film, or moving – cameras produce mimetic
renderings of an impossible second. They steal from existence,
from the moment meant to be lived in without fumbling
around in a purse, looking for a camera to take a picture,
but, they are very practical. I own two.
No technology,
even the most advanced of today –
“today” will always be true, so,
if you’re reading this one hundred
years from now, on May twelfth,
two thousand one hundred and eleven,
“today” means your today,
no,
nothing,
really,
can capture
that quick bat
that quick miracle
that quick moment.
