This Side
For Donald Sutherland
This Side - meaning Summary
Perceiving Through Touch
The poem explores perception and the paradox of light as both present and inaccessible. The speaker proposes that seeing and touching are mediated acts: fingertips and eyes together apprehend shadows, which become the means for constructing and dispersing worlds. Light is described as remote, its effects felt but not directly grasped, suggesting a boundary between appearance and reality and an awareness of another realm where light itself makes its presence felt.
Read Complete AnalysesThere is light. We neither see nor touch it. In its empty clarities rests what we touch and see. I see with my fingertips what my eyes touch: shadows, the world. With shadows I draw worlds, I scatter worlds with shadows. I hear the light beat on the other side.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.