REFLECTIONS AND SHADOWS
 
                    Art reveals itself to acquiescent eyes,
                     but reality lies hidden like Atlantis,
                        buried under centuries of waves
                      to be reconstructed by imagination,
                 and dreaming memories of the time before
                  the flood of scientific light that drowned 
                    the inner world, and fogged the clarity
                            of our perception's screen.

                  In this prison of appearances, watching 
                only flattened shadows on the distant wall,
                 I try imagining the casting rounded forms 
                     hidden behind the barrier of senses,
                      where the light of conscious life 
                    illuminates the shapes from behind,
                   losing dimensions, and transforming 
                        the contours to fit the surfaces
                           of my perception's screen.

              Reflections and shadows are complementary
                   images of light, whose forms depend 
                    on optics and the shapes of surfaces
                          that receive and invert them.
                           So on the rippled surface 
                        of my mind, reflections dance 
                     in a parody of the reality outside,
                   challenging intellect and imagination
                 to construct a coherent world and present
                as pictures, fancied images constructed
                        from the confusion that flickers
                             over perception's screen.
                    
                  What we call art is a perpetual search
                     to reveal the mystery of real things
                concealed by the paradoxes of appearance.
                   Framed in each work is a reflection,
                     thrown from the troubled surface
                       of the creator's dreaming mind, 
                        of his model of the real world,
                            and visual metaphor for
                               perception's screen