This Is The Only One

A drenching—

Seeing Things,¹

days & days,

radiant songs,

the start is not the finish.²

A chorus of seers—

fluid fields,

only this once,

once more,

we see the sun!³

the only one

this is the only one

this is the one

1 Title of a collection of poems, published by Seamus Heaney, 1991

2 Marlene Dumas, on how much to reveal about source material in her work (from “To show or not to show,” interview with Andrea Büttner and Jennifer Higgie, Tate Etc. issue 33: Spring 2015)

3 Fyodor Dostoevsky, in a letter to his brother written upon learning he would be pardoned from execution