Because I am Seen

March 15, 2013

by Leigh Brownhill

Let never me forget
as Mother told me that
I am beautiful
as I am and
in my reflection
of humanity and
in my connection
to earth and to heaven.

On pages unnumbered
and in pixels infinite
views of female forms
compel me and all
who see to see
a cruel continuum
from ‘dog’ to ‘queen.’

One might always be beautiful
to one’s mother and if so,
that love sets
a precedent that cannot
be rejected without rejecting
its motherly source.

And if, in truth, “beauty
is in the eye of the beholder,”
then the operative word
is not ‘beauty’ nor ‘eye’
nor ‘beholder’ but rather
that little word ‘in’ –
it is ‘in’ both
seer and seen.

Of course for those
who resemble the
pixelated dream, that
truth is trivial. But
put me on the scale,
weigh my quotient.
Experience cannot but
teach; I am happy not to be a queen and
I always prefer the
underdog.

I may be a blue-eyed
Siberian husky, but a
dog: loyal, strong, a worker,
spirited and communal. And
in human terms
unbothered by many
attentions; and I welcome it so.
I’ve kept myself from
being beaten, neglected,
tied, chained or misused –
almost completely so far.
I’ve given devotion;
I’ve loved and been loved.
Of course I’ve been
foolish and fooled.
Oh, but I know for sure:
to love is to see
another’s inner beauty;
thus to see myself
as beautiful is to
feel myself as loved –
even after the beholder has gone.

So, being not a queen
and being as I am,
the beauty in me fewer
conceive, thereupon giving rise
to deep attachment to
those who from within
themselves do see me. And
I do stay with them
consistently, cross
time, tide, and veils
alienating All, present
from past, living
from dead, Species
from Being.

Only wholly do then
I know how to live
and love and be,
unflinchingly, at one,
maybe selfishly,
knowing I am because
I am seen.