To shed light, not to take it off like a coat, but to send it out, like a lamp. To make a small enclosure of one’s tears, then transcribe them in words that come off later like a rind. To be the pit of light, rather than its outreach, to find substance before dispersal. To sit in a structure without walls, faced by a view of the Pacific. Turn ocean off and on with a light, or a cloud. The boy in the plane that lost its door plug shed a layer of his skin. Skin is the one organ we shed; others require surgery to come out of their bodies. An enclosure that loses itself, like a cataract after meditation. The red of the flower shed its screen, popped open like an eye, ogling mine. Achilles’ shield may have been mere skin. The image of a skinned knee lasts as residue from last night’s TV viewing. I’ll have to reconstruct the fuller image of the boy whose knee it was, though it only acted like a knee for the camera. An onion, shedding its, enables us to cry (Tin Drum).
As I shed my dose, it's easier to sense feelings, like the pulse of a dying animal, without the nausea of it. To shed is to get closer. St. John writes that meditation takes us only partway; contemplation is where we shed imagination and reason. “He wore armor,” was said of John Lennon, his wit. Not skin flint, but skin wit; it doesn’t go deep, but surfaces suffer, too. Today’s news is too predictable to hold to: war spreads like a bruise, reticulated only at its edges. I put my skin between the world and me. Fear and acceptance come together. “It is what it is,” is either cliché or wisdom, cliché as wisdom that’s grown skin. To be callous comes from this. Make sure your skin flutters, though it stays in place, like a cat surfing on a shower curtain.
Note: Reference to Ascent of Mt. Carmel, by St. John of the Cross. Image Books.
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