Sunday's Favourite Poem

Landscape
By Joy Learmonth

In the beginning only the foreground is important. Life consists of primary colours. Yellow sand, blue water, red of the sky at dawn. When the middle distance beckons I long to walk beside someone who seems to walk somewhere else, in a place I haven't been to yet. I search, in this rain-filled day, not knowing what it is I search for. Others seem to know where they are going. I stumble on once-familiar streets, reach for faces I have known, but they are alien. Faces where recognition slides away, sideways, in this goblin market, leaving me to climb my stairs in a ragged fashion. Far off I see gardens, pathways, a rose arbour, and begin to run. I find myself facing a trompe l'oeil painting - the future is a trick of the eye.

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What you see depends on which way you are looking and where you are standing. For me, the continuous and vivid changes in the imagery echo the ever-changing landscape of both external and internal life. In the beginning we are interested in the immediate; in ourselves. "Only the foreground is important". As time passes we "search" for connection with others, for meaning. Whatever we can see in the future may not last, may be a "trick of the eye" like a trompe l'oeil painting. The material world and our experiences in it, along with our relationships, are always changing. Life can be a lonely. The climbing of stairs in a "ragged fashion", serves as a metaphor for the psychological struggle of humanity.
I love this piece because it is so evocative and I feel a strong personal connection with it; a sensation of deeper meaning and understanding with each read.

-Sunday.