" Seeing Through"

In ancient days the term

they used was seer,

one who sees things from afar

--not in distance but in time--

for those who need to know.

I sometimes saw my father

seeing through when I was young.
His tired eyes would flicker visions 
only he could secretly recall

like firelight on a distant wall.

I saw this seeing first in you that night
when you were staring in the flames 
and I knew you saw beyond their light, 

beyond the glow

to sometime far away

as if entranced by time.

You never told me what it was

that held your gaze, but I already knew. 

You see...I am a seer, too.

We both are--me and you.

Whether it's a gift or curse

I cannot say for sure,

but it is a wondrous thing

to stare until you're seeing through...

seeing past the present...

beyond the day that is

to someday still to come...
then with a blink come back 
leaving nothing but bread crumbs
dropped for future déjà vu.

But here's the thing I have to share:

you'll sometimes see that
you yourself are there...
in that future scene...
fixed in a backward stare with yourself

from the far side of the flame.

Best yet, there'll come a time you'll see

me looking back at you

and if I'm gone, you'll know I'm here,

and what I’ve shared is true.

© Tom Kapanka, December,  2019

I don't dare fully explain these lines, because they don't mesh with my theology or understanding of time. They stem from a sensation I sometimes have that's something like déjà vu  but instead of feeling like I've already done the thing I'm doing or been the place I am, I see I time beyond my own life when those I love are older, and I am gone but still feel very much a part of their lives. 

It's similar to what happens in dreams when loved-ones who have passed are somehow sitting in the room and it feels perfectly normal--except for the fact that we're vaguely aware that the person is not supposed to be there--yet they are and we just enjoy the moment (as if actually talking about the strangeness of their presence might break the spell or shorten the dream).

It's when these trance-like feelings happen to me while awake that some might say is crazy. It especially happens if we have a houseful of family. I will be sitting there at the table or crowded living room, and I'll fade off, eyes wide. All the sounds fade and I'll "see" a similar time in my memory from decades ago, in my own childhood home with my own family. In that vision, I sometimes see my father there sitting with a houseful of company, and he, too, is momentarily staring into space, and our eyes meet... or do they?... Of course, they don't, but he smiles a knowing smile, and it makes me think: "He knew. He was ‘seeing through’ even then."

None of this makes sense within my view of reality, but it may be rooted in the sense that time on earth is linear, a continuum of sequential hours and days and years based on the relationship of the earth to the sun. Whereas eternity may or may not be limited to this linear format.

The KJV speaks of eternity as "when time shall be no more," based on Revelation 10:5-6, meaning "time as we know it will not exist,"  but most Bible translations interpret that phrase to mean "there shall be no more delay."  Still songs like "Till the end of Time," reinforce the notion that "time" as we know it will end even though classic hymns reflect both of these different interpretations. For instance, "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder" says "...and time shall be no more..." (quoting the KJV), but  the last stanza of Amazing Grace says, "When we've been there ten thousand years..." as if in heaven time is still linear and measured in "years" (maintaining the earth's relationship to the sun).

What has any of this got to do with these lines I've scribbled? Nothing but to confirm that I myself do not claim to know how time relates to human death only to say that I do believe, as the Bible clearly teaches, and as the Stage Manager in Our Town says in Act  III:

"We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being."

In that same play, same act, Emily asks the Stage Manager, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?" 

To which he responds: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some."

So it is only in that "saints and poets" sense that I wrote this admittedly odd piece. It touches on dreams and sensations that I have really had. I have snapshots  of my father and mother and other loved ones in which they were not aware that the picture was being taken and they seem "spaced off," entranced, somewhere else, even though the room is full of with others and all the conversation and chaos of the event around them.

Perhaps you've noticed someone doing this, and you politely bring the person back to reality and you ask, "What were you thinking?" or even "Where were you?" Sometimes the person shares a daydream or fond memory that "took them back," but often they just say, "I don't know."

These lines are about the "I don't know" times. Sometimes, I am aware of this sensation myself when it is happening to me, but as I said earlier, I don't dare try to explain it or hold it as I do important beliefs.

I did not pose this picture of my grandson. It was as I described. The house was noisy. Four different households (14 of us) had just returned from the Christmas Eve Service at church. For so reason, Charlie was sitting at the fire. He was somewhere else as he stared into flames. Nothing I did distracted him. I walked up to him, but he was somewhere far away, oblivious of my presence.  I'm sure he had no idea I took this picture. I stepped in closer and he "came back" as if he'd never been away. It was sometime later that the photo triggered my thoughts and the writing of these lines.

About an hour after the fire picture above was taken, Henry, my other grandson was sitting at the top of our stairs looking down at the same fire in the family room. His "trance" lasted long enough for me to see him there, go get my phone/camera from an end table, come back and take the picture without so much as a blink for about a minute. When I finally got his attention, I said, "What were you thinking about?" He smiled, "Nothing. I wasn't thinking." And that is exactly how it feels.

I've never shared these thoughts before. Some readers may be thinking: “Tom, what you have described happens every hour of the day in senior care facilities. Get used to it.” 

But actually, it is a sensation I have occasionally had for decades. Come to think of it, it began when my father died, and it may be unwise for me to project this strange experience onto others. I can only say it is not dark but rather a glimpse of things enternal and it really does happen to me occasionally, and I hope it happens to all my loved ones some time far from now. And if it does, I hope they will know of this post and this poem and the picture(s) that prompted it.

Again, I clarify that this is not a "spiritual" thing--it may simply be my imagination wondering somewhere between déjà vu and Thorton Wilder's Our Town, mixed with my previous thoughts about "The Ache of Joy" with hints of Ray Bradbury's poem "Remembrance" which struck a chord with me the first time I heard it recited in college. Toward the end of that poem, Bradbury says: 

"Dear boy, strange child, who must have known the years

And reckoned time and smelled sweet death from flowers

In the far churchyard." Ray Bradbury

Act III of Thorton Wilder's Our Town