View of a Uvea

Every frame excludes someone.
If there were a true portrait
Of every person alive,

It would omit the many,
Many more people who lived
And died, who would surely change

The meaning of the picture.
Saccade, friends. At least saccade.
Jump around among the scenes,

Change the faces focused on,
Often. Unfortunately,
It’s hard for any body

To really encapsulate
Much of all the other souls,
All the other days and ways.

You’d have to read all of us
To patch a good mosaic
Of the human species, but

Then, too, you’d be leaving out
The elaborate tangles
Of related hominins,

To say nothing of the rest
Of the world that some of us
Would rather keep in focus.

We are tiny pixels, us.
We decorate one corner
Of one iris of the mind.