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author’s note:

‘Cause you can never tell
What goes on down below!
This pool might be bigger
Than you or I know!
	-- Dr. Seuss


INTO THE LOOKING GLASS POOL

They said: that’s you.

Me?  That tater head was me?
I stared hard—then harder 
but that face still seemed so strange.  

Finally, I lost patience
and crawled away from the glass—
I would explore the outer world instead.  

However
the faces I saw now seemed
just as peculiar
as that one in the mirror.

And my efforts to understand them
soon ended
with the admonition: 
don’t stare at people.  

So I returned to my own face.

Some will surely say
You’re like that fellow in the story--
Narcissus.

No—
he only gazes at the surface
whereas I try to see beneath

and often 
I don’t love what I discover.
However
I refuse to look away
because an explorer must be brave.

But sometimes I need encouragement
so I tell myself:
don’t let the pain you find blind you
to the complex wonder
which is the human being

and whenever you encounter
a ferocious sea serpent
in the shadowy depths...

try to see his good side.