Catcher in the Eye done Good

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Years ago, I saw a painting in an art gallery that has made me reflect on the beauty of memory, capturing and preserving a precious moment in time. Yes, a photograph can do much the same, but a painting is so much more than a photograph; it reads aloud to the inner ear, thus inviting the inner eye to appreciate its every deliberate brush stroke in much the same sense and sensibility as one might appreciate iambic meter in a poem. As with all creative endeavour, the art lies in its artlessness, artist rewarding observer with an insight to a process that requires we tap into reserves of feeling of which the chances are we are not consciously aware.

Memory may fade, but the art-poem remains a part of us and will be sure to manifest itself in our approach to life, love, nature and human nature…; indeed, to  just about everything.

‘Oh,’ I hear some people say, ‘but that’s only if you have the imagination…’ Bollocks, to that! Imagination can and does work on our consciousness, yes, but it also works on the subconscious, possibly to even greater effect. So never let anyone lead you to believe you have no imagination; the human condition is better than that even where, sometimes, human nature fails us. 

Imagination is that Catcher in the Eye of which we may or may not be well aware but which, in any case, remains one of the sweeter mysteries of the human condition. 

CATCHER IN THE EYE DONE GOOD

Young girl with daisies
in the hair darts across a greeny field;
though brooding sheep
keep a sidelong watch on playful lambs,
the merry scene
attracts a frisky foal, prancing
at a boundary fence

Innocence

Young girl with daisies
in the hair glimpses a pretty butterfly,
gives laughing chase;
one tangent wing at a finger's tip,
angel face glowing
hope’s pink blushes, elusive happiness
caught on canvas

Copyright R. N. Taber 1974; 2001

[Note: An earlier version of this poem - under the title 'Brush Strokes' - first appears in Love and Human Remains: poems by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000.]