The Naked Eye, by Catherine Hunter

http://catherinehunter.org/ex_lh.html


excerpt from the book Latent Heat, by Catherine Hunter.



The Naked Eye
(in memoriam, HJB)

You are so far away, or let's be truthful,
you've been dead for twenty years,
a synapse in the brain of the city,
these streets so fractured, full of spaces.
I thought I saw you again this morning,
walking the maze of paths behind the planetarium,
as if you remembered the time
the teachers took us up there,
let us read the sky. They told us any loss
of matter is converted into energy. They gave us
telescopes and metaphors: You disappeared
at the speed of light. But some things are apparent only
to the naked eye. I can stand
on the Norwood Bridge and seem to touch
the potent circuit of the river. Venus, small
as the spurt of a penny match, appears
suspended, caught in the gap
of the St. Boniface cathedral's
excoriated window frame. The downtown lights
are sparks the city lets go, attempting
to purify itself. This city is still hot,
young friend, white hot.
It runs on the electricity conducted
through the streets when heroes
turn to constellations.
It's heat that separates the metal
from the ore, because in metallurgy,
as in death, beauty smolders closer
and closer to the surface
of the body, becoming visible at last,
setting itself free. The burnt cathedral,
with its empty window open like a mouth,
says, ah. The sound of finding
what it's lost. If you can see me,
make some sign. Darkness
is settling down, all over the suburbs,
and Venus is rising. I can almost see
the passion that set her blazing like a flare,
an SOS, a way of saying, don't stop looking
for me. I am here.