Field of Vision by Kathe L. Palka

Field of Vision
by
Kathe L. Palka

Testing Center, Wills Eye Hospital

First one eye patched, then the other,

we stare into machines which gauge

what cannot be regained, measuring

the unknown. Inside their whirs and clicks,

star by star, flashes of an artificial cosmos

appear then disappear within the limits

of sight and beyond. Dark voids form

where light dies unseen,

glimpsed only in visions.

Within my mind's eye the lost edges

of a hundred crimson sunsets take shape,

a fawn stands just off the highway

on a late summer drive,

an old friend winks from the corner

of a crowded room, and somewhere

near the border of a gray December garden,

a small statue of Pan plays the flute.

From Miracle of the Wine (Grayson Books, 2012).

Used here with the author's permission.

Kathe L. Palka lives in Hunterdon County, New Jersey and writes in both Japanese forms and free verse. Her short tanka collection, As the Years Pass, won an eChapbook Award from Snapshot Press in 2011. In 2015, Red Moon Press published A Path of Desire, a book of tan renga written by Kathe and poet Peter Newton. Two poems from her long form collection, Miracle of the Wine (Grayson Books, 2012), were featured on The Writer’s Almanac. Kathe is a member of the Haiku Poets of the Garden State and has been involved in the presentation of haiku for their yearly April haiku sign installation at the New Jersey Botanical Garden in Ringwood, New Jersey since its inception in 2018. She has co-edited the online micro poetry journal tinywords.com together with Peter Newton since 2012. Kathe is currently at work on a manuscript in Japanese forms. Learn more about her at her Haiku Foundation web page.

wendy morton:
She makes the ordinary, extraordinary in the blink of an eye.
Posted 12/04/2012 04:12 PM

Wilda Morris:
Excellent!
Posted 12/04/2012 10:24 AM

loisflmom:
I am scheduled for this test next week, and have always found it both annoying and anxiety-provoking. This time I'll try to think of this lovely poem and perhaps be more relaxed. Thanks, Kathe!
Posted 12/04/2012 09:22 AM

dotief@comcast.net:
Beautiful and poignant!
Posted 12/04/2012 07:54 AM

Glen Sorestad:
Loved it, Kathe. I especially lik that notion of the artificial cosmos within those whirs and clicks of the machine.
Posted 12/04/2012 07:39 AM

penhart:
Lovely images, Katha!
Posted 12/04/2012 07:09 AM

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