Absent Presence
Facing East, a figure awaits the imminent dawn.
Leaning with anticipation or age or for the sake of some unknown future or present or past, the figure — like an antihero in a trade novel — stands for or against or in spite of something obscured in the otherwise unremarkable absence of sublime here. Now.
How we wonder — we accidental observers of the figure’s passable drama — actors momentarily distracted from our own everyday — what desperation, what desire, what ennui leads the figure to this place, this time, this disciplined act, as if for only us who ourselves find no reason for finding this moment worth special consideration.
The dawn breaks and with that single point source of light we see the figure against this new day — a figure we find — remarkably — without shadow — a figure so much a part of the world that even the sun finds no reason to find it as it finds every other thing in the world — a figure we now suddenly envy — an enigma standing for nothing more than any other thing ever has or perhaps ever could.
