We can still look out at the show of the turning sun
Firing up clouds, powering the day and exclaim at the beauty
What a tragedy when we took beauty and stuffed it
Into the safety of things
Working so hard to keep it in an object
Either owned, or unownable
But it fights back
Slips through the cracks
Gets caught on canvas
In the strings & horns of desire
How hard we men have tried to
Keep it manifest in women’s curves
Only to find we’re left jealous when it
Taunts us with being so close
And their seeming ease with it
That women can even call each other beautiful
While we strive for stoic and strength
Or work at some vulnerability
What danger to release that frightening equality
To be able to look even upon each other
As beautiful
How did we get to this place where we are all so far from everything? “Father, paint me the earth on my body”, a Sioux chant from North Dakota, is how Galeano opens up Mirrors. Not that the indigenous people here were somehow supernatural, but that they were still closer to that time before we forgot we are a part of all of this that we live in.
