Study in Black²
This time, the man said it was a subtle piece, and together we stepped
into the black box, our hands groping handrails, darkness so thick it
seemed to swallow us whole. And what is human instinct, really, if not
the deep-rooted panic that sets in when we lose our understanding of
sight? For here is the world eyes opened or closed. Here is our bodies
becoming undone. If you can’t see the hand waving in front of your
face, how do you know the hand exists? And no, this is not a question
of trees falling in woods or Schrodinger’s cat alive or dead in boxes. I’m
tired of people questioning whether we matter unless we matter to
them. This is, after all, a poem about matter. And existence. And
how, after awhile, a light appeared in the distance, glowing like a fuzzy
cataract on an otherwise perfect plane of black. Without it, we might
have been everywhere and nowhere, boundless. Tell me, if you can’t
see the walls around you, how do you know they exist? Don’t pretend
they don’t. You know they do.
And I am so tired
of being boxed in.
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2 “Study in Black” was written in response to James Turrell’s Hind Sight (Dark Space).
