Beauty Looks Back

There are times when just looking out at the world is too much. With impeccable self-possession, she flaunts color, texture, pattern, dimension, and flickering foils of light.   All cascade through my gossamer lens and I am overtaken by the presence of these things.  Only then do I see why photos and video recordings are so widely cherished—they hold the focus, which hurried eyes that have seen-it-all can not grasp.  Yes, much is required to give pause, to linger longer and let all that in.

Oh, but how I long to receive the world, to be daily engorged with streams of color, shapely spectacles or just plain matter.  All of my patience and attention I will exchange for one glimpse of that deep-down presence in things. 

Yet, after my eyes roam the rolling country, tracing every verdant dip and golden contour, they fall upon him – a glorious human face – and I do not know if I can bear it any longer.  I must look away.  All that beauty looking back at me.