Seeing Yourself 

They say Mexican peasants were shown
themselves for the first time in Diego’s murals,
images walking about all blocky and simplified,
glorified. Given welder’s glass to observe
the solar eclipse by the National Geographic team,
disappearance of their Sun God,
the little Aymaran girls were instead
entranced at their own faces.

They say sitters for Daguerre’s first photos,
so stiff and grim, thought the captured-image eyes
looked out, watching them,
a Doppelgänger existence frozen on paper,
shocking for both. A chimp with a mirror
examined his own colorful behind
once the instant of recognition came
 …  the other is the self.

They say we hardly exist now if not preserved
on film and broadcast for all to prove
we are not figments of our own imagination.
We hold out sticks to dangle ourselves
onto all sorts of backdrops: an elegant plate,
a child’s ballgame, an upthrust feature of stone.
But a question always arises … which
is the created and who is watching whom. 

________________________________________________________________

Carol Hamilton is retired from teaching 2^nd grade through graduate students from Connecticut to Tinker AFB Oklahoma, from volunteer translating, and storytelling. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has published 17 books: children’s novels, legends, and poetry and has been nominated eight times for a Pushcart Prize.