2/24/10: Older Instincts

I had a science teacher once who told my class that the moon is no bigger on the horizon than it is in the sky. But it always seemed mammoth, like a planetary floodlight. He insisted that it was an illusion our ancestors had passed down to us- the lingering eyes of hunters who had watched the horizon. I've never tried to prove him wrong by measuring the moon, but now I feel the old eyesight regaining control. There is no way to know my progenitors, but I feel their sight now swiveling in my head.

In an urban matrix our eyes function in planar space. Menus, books, computer screens, billboards and tables all tribute the rectangle. The commercial world is stacked like playing cards, easily read and shuffled. But I have left that, and play in twisted space now, in a jungle of bending shapes. My job depends on me reading the collage just as my ancestors did. Standing in a bed of elephant grass bending over my head, I crane my neck slowly left then right then up then down, watching all angles of serpentine branches in green leafy clothes, waiting for a piece of red to touch the sunlight. I once walked in forests and saw only trees of faceless portraits. Now I shift my glance to the horizon and many patches of color pierce my eyes, kindling the old instincts. I even found a Jackson chameleon today, a slow little commuter hoping not to be spotted.