AN ACUTE OBSERVER OF LIFE
returning messages from the moral hinterlands
Humans make great beauty and also exceeding ugliness
both in the world and in their souls.
Men pump their seed as nature urges;
women may be horrified at what they give birth to.
We are on course towards a tragic future for our children and grandchildren,
yet we close our eyes and turn away.
Ah, those heads filled with greed,
those children of women practicing “the dark arts of predatory delay”
(J Porrit) we somehow tolerate.
This human plight needs to be confronted.
Amongst the many ways are found the tools of art.
May it be true that language used in poetry encompasses all experiences
from the past, present and future.
If this written language is indeed capable of such vision,
what of a photograph?
Unlike written words the visual literacy of photographs is universal.
Or is it?
One in not bound by German grammar,
American slang or Chinese signs.
Seeing and reading a photograph is simple.
Looking, looking at it is more difficult,
requiring more imagination, more energy and more determination.
As the Canadian philosopher and futurologist, Marshal McLuhan noted,
‘photography, like painting, is a cold medium,
which demands the viewer must go to it,
rather than hot media, as music and film
which extend themselves to the viewer.
In a photograph, a bear is a bear, an airplane is an airplane,
a look of fear or joy is just that, seen as that.
But of course, they are all metaphor:
standing in for something they allude to.
A bear may represent those surviving the terrible onslaught of human activity
which is destroying all animal’s foods and habitats.
An airplane may represent destruction of the atmosphere
from its carbon omissions,
or the enforced flight of migrants to a far-away country.
And an expression may refer to any number of human conditions.
A poem, essay, novel, film and musical piece all have beginnings and endings.
Often their temporality is marked by a stanza, movement, chapter, scene, act
or other measure of time, as ancient bells for the calls to vespers.
What of a painting or photograph?
I watch as people in galleries regard paintings or photographs.
Often they glance at the image,
perhaps look more closely at the information card
and move on within several seconds
as if they, the viewer knew it all, already.
This may reveal laziness, visual illiteracy and perhaps a little arrogance.
To be a decent photographer one must be an acute observer of life.
Sit in a square and watch people move through it.
What at first seems banal or seemingly knowable,
soon offers questions about the nature of each individual’s movement,
preoccupations and concentration.
It begs questions about health or illnesses, sexuality, self-possession or self-doubts.
What of the way they dress?
Do they cover or reveal different parts of themselves (legs, hair, breasts, arms)?
Do they emphasise their hips, their walk, their necks?
Does their manner of dress indicate their job, wealth, station in life?
Do they lead thoughtfully with their foreheads, proudly with their chests,
or boastfully with hips thrust forwards?
I sit at the edge of the sea, starring at what?
Am I thinking of a photograph to make, or of infinity,
or of my own finity?
I lay on my back imagining lines between the heavenly bodies
imagining animals, dippers and gods,
naming them out of arrogance or out of playfulness,
and wondering about them or my own insignificance,
or more positively, recalling that my atoms, dust and 7 ounces of soul
are a part of this wonder.
Do I feel the earth and its soil under my shoulders spinning through space?
Do I thank it for its life-giving gifts,
for one day accepting my ashes?
And between soil and sea
do I sense the wonder of the shore
with its seaweeds, sea gulls and seashells?
Today, sea and land are still places of births and longing
but what of the fires, the explosions, canons and bombs.
What of air, water, and soil, the life givers?
We, weak as we are,
even with our powerful sciences,
cannot make the air, water and soil to fulfil our needs,
and we are yet to understand how to control fire
and thereby how to restrain militarism, violence and wars.
We are yet to control the oil and coal diggers
and their careless investors and loyal political servants.
What use to be an acute observer of life?
We are messengers
bringing back stories from the hinterlands of our moral enigmas
to whomsoever will look or listen.