Distant Learning

Sequestered in togetherness, overwhelmed by the
Light of day, by the brilliance, by the unusual
Colloquial words, as if from a transcribed lecture
Given from notes (an outline perhaps), the talk,
Accompanied with projected slides, later, the exposition
Refined, booked in paperback, printed with images,
Which are presently numbered figures, the worn thin
Tome was placed on a shelf for an unbeknownst swap
Of knowledge, the inherent topic: locus classicus
Exchanged for proverbial wisdom; the procedural
Confluence, a wondrous ponderous.

Istoria--the pictorial esoteric of representation,
Receptive and attentive seeing and looking, narrative and
Descriptive appearances, parallel worlds in paradox:
Choice and reason; the perspective neighboring nature
Aligned with the locale: the perceived accuracy.

These exhaustive ideas (in the second chapter) isolated
Tensity, dimmed clarity, enough to prompt a collapse
On the couch for a narcoleptic nap; neural eyes shut
Down to dream densely--and awaken refreshed, not
So much enlightened (not a century older), just brought
To human scale; the lesson wherein, by what measure
Is the truth; in the researched searching is the gerundial
Observation by this appreciative self-deprecate.

-------------------------
"'Ut Pictura, Ita Visio': Kepler's Model of the Eye and the Nature of Picturing in the North." The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century: by Svetlana Alpers, The University of Chicago Press, 1983, pp. 26–71.