illusion most real

It was a still autumn afternoon as I sat at the weir on Nursery Stream at Kirstenbosch. The reflections of the forest trees were so clear that I could hardly make out the rocky bottom of the shallow pond. Something as immaterial as a reflection in the pond’s surface had effectively obscured what was ‘really there’.

It was a timely reminder that emotions can distort our perception of situations, and that it takes effort and a change of perspective to see what’s really going on ‘beneath the surface’.

illusion most real

Still afternoon pool
mirrors encircling trees.
Whirligig
betrays the surface.

What is real here?

Upside-down world floats,
obscures what lies beneath;
rock and stone
lie hidden in the
shallow crystal stream.

Seen and unseen touch
where air and water meet.
Emotion
drowns reality,
veiling your truth from me.