Eyes

"Sight is to eyes as soul is to the body" - Aristotle

They glowed like pleading searchlights for centuries
until soul retreated deeper leaving sunlight to hit dust
and flowers whose scent now takes the shortest way;
two synapses to become a memory.

Hardly noticeable their incessant to and fro
to keep the image fresh upon the retina,
or brightening the night by looking away,
flickering even in sleep between nostalgia and anxiety

beneath lids that evolved as screens on which
to project ourselves, the world too frail, until we're woken
by the phone which stops as we reach the stairs
and we return to bed, refilling limb by limb

the warm afterimage of dream where souls persist,
while in a distant Pixar studio, ray-tracing programs
calculate the only light that matters, working back
from eyes to objects to sources of light.

Tim Love


If you have any thoughts about this poem, Tim Love   would be pleased to hear them