See Saw

Michael Newton (butcheredswitch.blogspot.com)

episode 18

I found myself imagining an old see-saw, rocking back and forth in the wind. A specific one, at the old playground, the skyline, at the top of Coal Street, in Lehighton. We used to go there and look for fossils at the base of a shale ridge when I was a boy.

As I watched the board of wood move up and down, I began to think about the words see and saw. See and saw. In between is time, where present becomes past. I see an shaggy black dog coming towards me on the street, and later on, I tell about how I saw it.

I can’t avoid the obvious conclusion: there is a see saw in the mind. And the one side sticks out into the air, and the other is set inside the forehead. The sights of life drop onto one side, as we see them, and the board tilts and the sight slides down it, inside, saw.

So many dogs, so many days. Up and down. See and saw.

This dog follows me around, up and down the side streets.

Never alone

The question replays

Is the seen thing

The same

This feeling

Gives a name

Tomorrow

Today

We are made and bounded by

Hands reach out and hold places in their cup

I kneel with my mother finding shells

Small things that we saw

dragonfly

dusk

two boys playing

the cement back porch

grey of rain

leaves thick and dark green

the rain

people walking

Pop pop in his pjs eating a donut in the morning his coffee

The see saw saw

The see saw See

If you take it all away, is there any you left?