Not Seeing What's Right In Front of Me

All week as I've been spending time with Elena, I've been thinking, "Linda, you don't see half the stuff around you!"

While Mike was still here, I walked up on the patio one day and there was a huge snake who'd made his way over from the demolition across the street.  It was the first snake I'd seen since living in town--though I saw two huge rattlesnakes up close when we lived in Helotes.

I thought of the saying, "If it were a snake, it would have bitten you."  Mike said, "Oh, it's a good snake. You want to keep him."  He showed me that his head was skinny; that meant he wasn't poisonous.

I didn't want to keep him.  I figured I'd probably step right on top of him one night in my bare feet and have heart palpitations as loud as the yell Mike heard when I saw the innocent old fellow.  As it turned out, he died on his own a few hours later, and I wasn't sad to hear the news.

Elena squats down to look up close at insects.  She tells me my hair is getting yellow and that I have a "big booty"--adding, "That's what we call 'em in Spanish."  She wants to know the names of trees and flowers in my yard and Jan's and she stops on our walks to look at every blooming thing.  She gazes at things my eyes pass over. (I gaze at her!)  She points out things to look at that she sees and so often I say, "Oh, I missed it!"

So it was with that thought in mind that I began reading Pathways to Ancient Shelters by my friend, Mary Locke this morning.  Here is a poem in the book:

Seeing Games

Dancing myself
into a trance is
not my culture.
Though tempted,
I am terrified of
that much surrender.
I would like to be a seer
but scarcely see what's
right in front of me.

I play vision mnemonics:
look at that snake, notice texture,
attend to light and shadow,
focus on form, line,
color, tone, context,
and movement, especially movement.

Still I miss so much.
"If it had bene a snake,
it would have bitten me."
Once it was a snake, a king snake,
and I did not see until I almost
stepped on it, even though
I was looking for snakes.

See and name: wickiup, circle, tipi rings,
Rio Grande vega covered with cane.
See and name: ancient images drawn
on the shelter in the canyon.

See and name: a stat but
not enough.  I want more
even though I fear what might
be revealed and I dread
what might be asked of me.