1.
Precision. A lens.
High magnification
smaller field of vision.
To see birds better.
Buy binoculars. Recall
human history of optics.
Who saw what. Dee’s
black shewstone, see
better in the dark. Fresnel.
Galileo. Mary looking
up at the angel.

2.
Speaking of angels,
remember the one
posted at Eden’s gate,
flaming sword, to make
sure Adam didn’t sneak back in?
I wonder if that radiant
sentinel sometimes turned
and peered back into Eden
and from what he saw,
or didn’t see built a message
he came down to earth with
to console Adam and his kin–
you can’t go there, but with
the lens of the mind you can see
and by seeing almost be there.
Here, try this magnifying lens,
I made it for you from sand
of Eden, turned glass
by the fire of my sword.

3.
Grosbeak. Oriole… Wren.
We mark them in our minds
by seeing them up close
without violating the sacred
space of their distance. Bench.
Fence. Feeder. Put the spyglass
back in the satchel. No way out
from what we have seen. Seeing
is such a commitment! I can hear
the wise woman say as she picks
up the remote to turn TV off.

4.
The way Pieter Saenredam
could see a church, sent his eye
high up to the roof of the nave
so his painting could look down
on the immense emptiness
of the cathedral, made emptier
by a person or two but how
could he see himself down there
from way up here, where we are?

5.
So when your eyes
are far
away enough
you can see everything.

10 May 2023