Obstructed Sight Poem by Noah Smits

The beauty we see in the sea is a ruse
no better than makeup, the sky as its aid,
so clarity gives way to purples and blues
while views closer, truer, know those colors fade.
So perfect, that clearness, that which we see not!
Our subject is shuffling dust in the murk.
What's near is distorted, what's deeper is blocked,
what's deepest's unknown, cloaked in speck-shade alurk.
We cannot see water from shores bare and tall—
that dazzling expanse is reflection on soot.
Look straight at Atlantis: you won't see the walls.
Look straight at sunk treasure: you will not see loot.

The case is the same when we look at the sky
whose stars look like points on a backdrop of black
but represent light in its countless supply,
immense but besieged—for surround us like flak
do planets and moons, satellites and debris, as
they intercept photons, extinguishing light;
a miniscule wedge of sky boundless we see as
its glory supreme shrinks to dots in the night.
With misleading shading, abridging the spatial,
the universe hides from us its outer rim.
Look straight at the heavens: you will not see angels.
Look straight at Jehovah: you will not see him.