The Respectful Art of Gazing

We long for nothing exceptional only

Love at the water’s edge

And an unerring eye for exquisite details

The possibility of holding a frozen scene

In our cupped hands O look! this poem

Desires to register the here and now

By means of any number of evocative images

The buttoned jacket of that man for example

And the string dangling before the child’s hand

These invoke our sense of touch

As does the woman’s right hand

Caressing her cascading curls a rhyme

With the oak branch draped in Spanish moss

And judging from the long shadows

It must be the end of a leisurely day

Certainly whatever was going on has reached

A pause for see how the man droops rather

Concentrating on his own preoccupations

A steel drum and a wooden barrel

Stand near the bayou where several boats

Are either moored or drawn up on shore

Notice the bicycle’s front wheel

Turned slightly toward us what does it mean?

What to make of this man this woman this child

And these other things presented in a distinct

Continuum so we might appreciate them

At our leisure and for ourselves the respectful

Art of gazing 

Countenances no action

That might narrowly define the moment