Whose
Eyes Are These?
by Norbert Krapf
by Norbert Krapf
Whose
eyes take me in,
in
my pre-dawn study?
Where
does that light in your eyes
come
from, young Miss Ida?
I’m
listening to a song titled
“Not
Dark Yet,” but truth is,
it’s
been dark a long time.
You
know. You been there.
You
look at me and you don’t.
You
look at me, but you see
something
way beyond. Who
knows
what you really see?
What
you see may lie beyond you,
the
history of the Pinkston Settlement
founded
by your great-great-grandfather
Emanuel
Pinkston, freed slave from Georgia.
One
side of you was free, the other
side
was a Kentucky slave. You got one
eye
for each of your sides, Miss Ida.
That’s
how you look at and over me
but
I don’t know what you see.
Seems
to me you see nothing
and
everything at the same time
but
I can’t see what you see in me.
Bio: Norbert Krapf, former Indiana Poet Laureate, is a Jasper,
Indiana, native who lives in downtown Indianapolis. His most recent books are Catholic Boy Blues (2014) and Shrinking the Monster: Healing the Wounds of
Our Abuse, a prose memoir forthcoming in fall, 2016. He held a Creative
Renewal Fellowship from the Arts Council Indianapolis (2011-12) and received a
Glick Indiana Author Award (2014).
Editor’s note: For more
information about the African American Pinkston Settlement in Dubois County,
click here.