The Other Side

Impressionist painters capture sun

sparkling over waves as slots and bars

brimful of radiance but self-contained,

capsules of dappled light.

Having said dappled, it was time to think

exactly what such spottedness might mean.

And what it meant was two sides of a coin:

the urge to complicate,

the urge to simplify;

the wish to keep,

the wish to give away

or just get rid of;

the itch to leave,

the itch to stay

right here. Decisions:

the daily tug of war,

the seesawing, the pull, the argument,

the fidgeting partitioned into light,

light breaking up in ripples at my feet.

As if I had somehow crossed over

from one realm to another,

I stood, not moving, ankle-deep

in dapples come undone, the human knot

untied and sparkling in another sun.