On the page when Peter reads there labors a little man. Above each word of each line as Peter reads. This little man aids Peter in the process by dragging Peter’s cautious left eye after his right. Like towpath horses tugging a load on a barge up a canal. So the right eye flies by and reads happily and then it must linger at the end of the line. The right eye waits and the left eye hesitates on each word: “The – reason – why - the – seven – stars – are – no – more – than – seven – is – a – pretty – reason.” Right eye tapping its foot. Left eye, to its own interpretation, hurries. But it is slow. The little man tugs it along with thick hemp rope. Pull, hah, pull, hah. The left drags across the page and then joins the right eye at the end of the line. “Ready?” asks the right.
“Ready,” says the left.
“Jump!” shouts right, holding hands with left. And they fly from the end of the line to the new beginning, all the way to the other side of the page. Seems like a thousand miles. They land safely together. “Go!” shouts the right and begins racing after the letters in each word each word in each phrase, adroitly full-stopping and half-stopping, high on the exercise. The left eye: “Um, okay, let’s see . . .” Without the little man who stands above each word Peter would not be able to read. Frustration and he’d abandon task. The little man hauls the left eye, and after hours of practice Peter’s eyes are in sync and the reading day.
Eventually his eyes work in concert, after an agonizing trial that begins anew each morning. They become synchronized swimmers, or those Olympic double divers, doubles, twins, sweetly. Peter breathes slowly in an attempt to calm mind frantic, which awaits information and wishes to process in the quick. Soon left eye forgets his trepidation, works in the moment like an athlete musician, unthinking, instinctual. The two eyes are brothers and they slide across the page holding hands.
At this lovely point the towpath little creature rests. He pauses against a capital S and smokes a cigar. Proud of his charge. Two eyes holding hands reach the line’s terminus, shout “Jump!” together and fling themselves in the air and catch God’s breath to the left side of the page and they with a running start begin the new row. They wear small parachutes like Charlotte’s aeronaut cousins in order to catch breezes into the void. A scary thing! Jump! And sail to the left, land on soft toes, on the run fold silk into its pouch, gathering steam they cross the word-terrain, smiling with the thrill, approaching the cliffs at the end, and, and JUMP! They leap into the air, into the mysterious chasm between the end of the line and the beginning of the next, that secret exploration of the unknown, that infinite realm.
What happens between the end of the line and the beginning of the next? Whole worlds born, stars come and no, instant flash of Nothingness. The philosophers’ gap between sign and signifier, nothing for you but an idea. Give the idea a word, it’s your only hope. The eyes so very brave. The man and woman who read intrepid. “How it works is anybody’s guess,” muses Peter.
Of course, when Peter reads Hebrew it’s a different story. In the morning, when they begin labors for the day, the right eye forever bumps into the left, left slows him up, like Mary Decker and Zola Budd. Annoyance for the right eye and the brain which must assimilate. The left eye nervous. Orb gets testy. The little man tugs, shouting hurry, an exhorting coxswain. Heave ho, heave ho. The left eye reaches end of the line, on left-hand margin, and stares into the darkness below. “We must jump,” suggests the right. “It’s our only option.”
“I can’t,” from the left.
“Look, on three, okay, I’ll be with you.” They count to three. The left eye closes itself. They bound and glide backwards toward the beginning of the new chain and the soar a rush, healthy this thrill of overcoming trepidation.
Peter smiles as he reads and he holds conversations with the little man when the man rests upon his M, K or F, or straddles exclamation’s apex, sipping two fingers. While the eyes work independently. While the brain a circus juggler.
Fog Lines Atlanta
Standing on the edge of your own life line, drawing lines in the sand, for everyone a Rubicon