Brenda Smith's "Dear Carl" after Roger Lee Ivens

Brenda Smith photographed in Hickory Museum of Art on October 13, 2018.

DEAR CARL—When I can’t get my head above the earth 

By Brenda Smith

after Sun and Hands by Roger Lee Ivens

At least I can raise my arms.

My hands with the all-seeing eyes

yearn to look at the too-brilliant sun

grasp for the laden sky

full of simultaneous sun and stars.

Is this what happens when you use your hands to see?

A fresh scope and slant on the universe

heavens green, then briefly blue

fading into shades of autumn

as the light penetrates the earth.

Is this the origin of the seasons then,

the angle of the eyes of our hands

as we stretch toward the light?

We look backwards to look forward

and we truly see.

I reach North, eyes averted

and for the first time

see the sun’s third eye.

A thousand times past

squinting at her face

yet only when I shift and choose another angle

do I notice that all-seeing eye.

Sun, you cosmic know-it-all.