Perception – Jill Szoo Wilson

A man sits at a desk
with a telescope.

He has positioned it carefully.
The angle is correct.
The candle has been trimmed.

He is searching the sky
for something of importance.

The sky, meanwhile,
contains everything.

He believes in instruments.
He believes in narrowing the field.
He believes that what matters
will appear in the center.

The lens obliges.
It offers a disciplined circle.
Stars enter one at a time,
as if taking a number.

Then a streak of light
crosses the room.

Not through the telescope.
Beside it.

The man does not see it.
He is concentrating.

The sky has chosen
a different method of entry.

He adjusts the focus.
He notes the stability of the heavens.
He appreciates their order.

Something bright fades near the wall.

He records nothing.

In this way
the universe remains vast,
and the man remains certain.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

Silence is not the same as peace.
Quiet is different than calm.

Even the lake that mirrors
our sun collapsing
into night’s slow unmaking
teems with life—
muscle and current
moving beneath its silvered skin.

Silence is not the same as peace.

Peace is not an exhale of agreement.
It does not depend
on our foreheads touching
or my lungs
drawing in your breath
as if oxygen were opinion.

Peace does not ask
the mouth to soften
while the heart stays braced.

Peace is not an exhale of agreement.

Contentment is not stagnation.
It is wind finding corridors in air,
invisible highways
where birds trade
the panic of wings
for the steadiness of lift.

Contentment is not stagnation.

A voice once warned,
“Silence
like a cancer grows.”

But silence is a vessel.
Clay.
Hollow.

It holds what we pour into it.

Speaking is not the same as expressing.
Words rise like smoke
from cigarettes of perception,
stinging the eyes,
thickening the air,
blurring the space
between meaning
and what was meant.

Speaking is not the same as expressing.

Volume does not mold understanding.
Voices rise.
The need to be right
outpaces the need to listen.

The echo fills the room
until we cannot hear
each other breathe.

Volume does not mold understanding.

Distorting the self does not create unity.
Your red and my blue
collide into purple—
first a storm in water,
then something dense,
new,
pressing outward.

Distorting the self does not create unity.

To understand the thing itself—
whatever thing it be—

we must remain vessels.

Clay—
not hardened
by fear,
not sealed
by pride.

Open enough
to hold what is spoken
and what trembles beneath it.

Tag: Perception

Poem: Field of View

Poem: The Thing Itself