ABSTRACT

jerry harrenstein

Is the line your 
looking at straight,
or is it curved?
Would knowing that
the straight line was
actually curved
cause you to become 
unnerved,
unhinged,
or would you
shrug it off with a grin
and see it as it is?

Do you only look at things
that make sense
and call everything else
nonsense?
Do you consider night to be
your dark,
or is dark
your daylight?
Is dark without light
called night?
Is night with light
called daylight?

Can black exist without 
white?
Do you recognize white 
to be black without light,
or do you
only see 
black
as black
and white
as white?

Do you not know that
without daylight
there can be no night,
no dark,
no darkness!

Does the light of day
comfort you,
explain all to you,
make everything
cut 
and
dry
for you,
causing you to never
wonder why?
Does it?
Does it!

Do you walk throughout your life
excepting it,
afraid to live it,
become one with it,
be part of it?
Are you afraid to change it
if you do not like it?
Don't.
Don't do that!

Does the night lead you astray
because it is not the day?
Do you prefer it to be that way?
Do you want to see things in a 
different way
than you do in the day?
You can choose to embrace 
the day
and see what you think your seeing
is the way it should be,
or you can choose night to be your day
and see things in a different way.

I would prefer to live in the night,
rather than in the day
and that is why I chose
night over day
come what may.

With the night,
you need all of your senses
to make sense
of the night.
In the day,
everything seems to
make sense
in the light
and one thinks 
everything is right
with the light.

How wrong you are
if you think the light
makes everything alright!
With the night you
get uncertainty.
In the daylight
all you get is normality. 
With the night, 
comes darkness,
a dark that is Abstract,
a darkness that prays on your
imagination,
preys on your fears,
plays with your mind,
your senses,
senses you need to
help you overcome
what the dark 
has in store for you.

I mean what could be more Abstract
than darkness,
where nothing is 
cut 
and
dry,
where a straight line is curved,
where only your senses can
help you as your fears overcome you.

The dark,
the Abstract,
the Abstract that will reach out from
under the cover of night
and grab hold of you,
try to choke you,
even control you,
surround you,
shroud you from 
any light
you might
seek.

Close your eyes for a moment,
try to walk a straight line,
try to see light through 
eyelids that are shut.
You can't.
You can't!
The straight line you try to walk
is curved,
so curved
that 
you 
become
unnerved.
Without light,
you have no control,
darkness is in control.

Some people like the dark.
They like to hide in it,
seek comfort in it,
even play in it.
They like the fact
that
it's
Abstract.

Some people cower 
when darkness sets in,
when cut 
and
dry
ends
and 
Abstract 
begins.

For those whom fear the dark,
they should know  that it is
only night
without light
and that darkness
is night's
light.

If you become one 
with the night,
you will understand
that there is more to
fear in the light
of day
than in the light
of night.
When the certain 
becomes the uncertain
and the uncertain
becomes the certain,
you'll realize it is
the Abstract 
at work.

In the dark you see
what you think you see,
the Abstract.
In the light you see 
what your supposed to see,
the Concrete.

What is it that you 
want from life?
Do you want a life
filled with certainty,
the Concrete,
or
do you want a life 
with flexibility,
the Abstract?

Matters not to me what
you want your life to be,
just as long as you
understand me.
Understand that night
is day
and day
is night,
that Concrete can be Abstract
and Abstract can be Concrete.

Close your eyes
one more time.
Go deep inside
the dark side
of your mind.
Journey into the unknown,
travel on a road 
that you think is taking
you home.
It's not the road you think
it is though,
it's the Abstract your 
traveling on.
Your mind starts to work
overtime.
Your eyes dart to
and fro,
up
then down,
side 
to side
every mind splitting
second.

Confusion,
confusion reigns supreme.
You meet up with Abstract
and introduce him to your
abstraction.
You realize there is no direction,
no certainty in your abstraction.
Desperately you try to find peace
and harmony
within your darkness.
In your confusion,
you think you see a light
shining in your night,
only to realize it is 
 Abstract at work again. 
Confusing you,
denying you,
denying you the
Concrete
you
seek,
making you take the least 
road traveled on,
causing you to run
helter
skelter
in the dark,
the 
dark
that is your light
without night.

With all that is going on,
your mind becomes numb.
You seek your freedom,
freedom from the grip
night has on you.

You seek a way out of 
the dark and its uncertainty.
Run not from the dark,
the dark,
the uncertain,
embrace it,
see it as your salvation,
your Concrete. 
 
Open your eyes now
and let the light
that is night
come in once again.
Walk towards the light 
you saw.
Let your mind be filled
with awe.
Go beyond the light,
let Abstract walk 
hand in hand
with Concrete.

Your fear of the uncertain
will be no more,
your certainty 
will become more,
so walk,
walk out of the night
and make it your daylight.
Let your mind
see the two
sides of right.

Let Abstract
be your Concrete
and Concrete
be your Abstract.


Let the light of day
shine down,
reign supreme,
dance round
and round,
then bring it,
bring it on home.



 
                           Poem written by jerry harrenstein
                                 and dedicated to B.Y.