The Impact Of A Mere Glance Poem by Gert Strydom

There is a moment when a mere glance
can become everything,
when a face do speak volumes
to the heart and mind and soul,
when dumbfounded your eyes
do catch those of a girl
and equally big-eyed
that woman does look back at you.

In that moment nothing else
is really of any importance
and at the red traffic light
having just stopped with the car
I saw her, really looked deep into her soul
and similarly she saw me.

I did not notice the traffic light,
the other cars,
the people on the sidewalk
everything else was lost
out of the picture
as if into a big void

but yet that sight asked for much more
where it lacked the power to take in
more than the ideal form,
the ideal expression,
the ideal experience
in the ideal moment,

as if this moment was everything
and yet there is a void to this
but to this kind of ecstatic happiness,
there is a kind of bliss
that the eyes do bring to the mind

where it's almost like a simplification
of the person that it does represent
but at a level where it has very deep meaning

and this is not falling in love in a moment
although probably a meeting after this
could really lead to something
or to nothing in the way that life does go
but probably to absorb her face,
its expression,
the opening into the heart,
into the soul and mind
puts it against all beautiful and lovely things

and this is not just her face or something in it being beautiful
but it brings its utter joy,
its sadness, pain and even misery
and everything that she is to the heart and mind,

the little snub nose,
the shape of the face,
the intelligent high brow,
the crown of the hair,
the movement with which she did throw her hair back,
the chin's shape and way that she holds it,
the expression of the lips,
but most of all those eyes,
that did swallow me

and this experience is not a desire
or a want or need
but it's there like a lovely sunbird fluttering,
a bee, a dragonfly or a butterfly,
or a black-red rose opening
but with much more meaning,
with a kind of mystery
where in the moment only the two of us do exist
and this brings a kind of tranquillity and inner joy
as it does really give meaning to being alive.

The cars behind me hooted
and that moment was broken
although she did smile at me
but life and all of its things of existing
flooded back while I did drive away.

© Gert Strydom