To See

 

By David Jones

TO SEE

“Everything has a beauty, but not everyone can see.”

Confucius

 

To transcend into a different dimension of reality…

I walk slowly the tired streets of Old Delhi

along rutted tracks, between ancient stones

islands swallowed by eddies of effluvium

through cloisters of poverty

awash with emergent dreck of another kind

the poor

I pass sleeping near-dead

one step closer to this journey’s end

two steps closer to the next

my empathy feels their hurt, their need

to touch, to hold

to share, to belong, to be loved

I observe a moment shared

between mother and child

dark eyes within a countenance of the cherished

even as a young man, sightless

grim carved sockets set in puckered blackened flesh,

still raw from whatever ravage beset him

also sees

sees more than we, blessed

with clear lively orbs that show us nothing

the woman moves

her infant wrapped within its mantle of black

she kneels before that spoiled face

gently

lays her hand

envelopes the piebald geography of his outstretched arm

his facial muscles

desiccated strands of connective tissue

appear to relax, absorb the kindness

her compassion

her love

that hand also reaches to me.

 

About the author:

David’s working life was mostly spent in the Middle East and Asia, he was fortunate to have been in touch with different cultures: to be able to look at those cultures from (as far as possible) within that culture, a very important perspective made possible by living there, a perspective he has tried to maintain in his travels.

It is through this ‘emic’ view that he was able to, if not fully understand, to at least have a perspective through the eyes of those he was trying to appreciate.

His photography and poetry is mostly of people and cultures but also of their history, the ancient history, the story of mankind.

The basis for his writing is empathy toward the world around him, a need to speak of history, natural beauty and sadly injustice and repression, aspects of the human condition he met where he worked and lived.

David is releasing a book of photos and poetry concerning the Stolen Generations, in conjunction with this he is having a photographic exhibition in August 2023 at the Ballarat Photo Biennale.