United States, (1905-1974)
IN A PIG’S EYE
(Those magnified models of the eye-ball found in optician’s offices are often copied from the eye-ball of the pig, which is exactly like that of the human.)
- There is the eyeball, innocent and alone,
- Surgically living, sculpturally not quite dead:
- The means of sight, the model of my own,
- My open eye, taken from a pig’s head.
- There is the eye I see with, but the where
- I see with it does so arise and shine,
- Darken and fall, it does not well compare
- With the more settled vision of the swine.
- Whatever may enlighten a pig’s eye
- The head behind the eye is not like men’s –
- Who once observing small lights in the sky
- Distrusted their small sight, and made a lens.
- But is it not all daylight and delight,
- Pig’s vision, reaching only just so far?
- Have we not come by an excess of sight
- Through wonders to the terrors that they are?
- Yet could I use another lens, I would:
- Attain the field of vision of the stye;
- See through the pig whether for ill or good
- I do not share his blind faith in the naked eye.
About the Poet:
Marie de L. Welch, United States, (1905-1974), was a poet and writer, also known as Marie de Laveaga Welch and Marie de Laveaga. Welch lived in the California Bay Area and her work was often involved in
progressive politics and social reform. Welsh was featured in The Best Poems of 1931, edited by Thomas Moult.
She figured prominently in the history and literary achievements of the Popular Front Movement (1934-1939) in the United States that emerged in response to the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe.
Welch helped organize the Western Writers Congress in 1935 which presented the poetry, and worldview of California poets and their struggle to create their own political positions appropriate to the times. [DES-01/22]
Additional information:
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The Marie de Laveaga Welch papers collection (circa 1917-1974) is housed at UC Berkeley Libraries, Berkeley, CA, USA.
This includes correspondence, manuscripts of her poems, notes and prose writings, journals. Also included, correspondence and papers of George Parsons West, her husband. Correspondence regarding literature and social or political issues is prominent.