Away
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Turn the page away from morning, away from scattered grains of rice in a broken bamboo basket feeding wild crows. Blacker than faces hiding inside deep dark passages watching the street. Always watching. Staring with hard deep black eyes.
Their eyes, when they lived in the flat countryside covered in lost forgotten patient rice paddies waiting for a drop of water near groves of palm, coconut, banana trees surrounding bamboo thatched homes on stilts and naked children playing with dreams, watched deep shadows.
They watched. They never closed. They watched for enemies, invaders from Thailand, America, Vietnam, wives, husbands, children, strangers, soldiers, Apsara dancers. They were always on always ready to see the smallest cosmic movement across horizens, miles of land mined country or inside thick foliage.
Their eyes danced with waiting. Waiting held their eyes as lovers will, close, feeling fluttering lids, retinas trembling with visual information, data, mysteries. They cultivated patience, a necessary food. They comprehended their essential visual priorities. Watching, a national sport, is their universe.
They had a small vital responsibility living in perpetual darkness - seeing far away with telescopic acuity. Their constant vision burned up 85% of their daily energy. The remaining 15% was used for procreation, eating, speaking and laughing. Laughing burns up calories.
Eyes practice the silent art of being silent, watching past another person during a silent conversation watching each other's back being the other. How they face the other watching beyond where everything matters infinitely. For one moment in their short sweet life.
Metta.
