Harbourwalk Poem W408

What’s the opposite –
Of the term “vanishing point”?
An “appearing point”?
Or maybe a “Jesus” point?
Or how’s about a “Rome” point?

 

10.28.19

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Copyright by Minh Tan on listed dated of completion.

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Notes to this poem…

My previous poem was about how I had noticed all light beams from a distance reflected in a body of water comes to each viewer viewing them, by virtue of science, as if they either met at, or originated from, the viewer. It was as if the concept of the vanishing point was converted to the viewer instead of some distance infinitely far away from the viewer. It was as like the viewer was at some point that could only have been the opposite of a vanishing point.

This poem documented the brainstorming outcomes I did to come up with a term opposite to the vanishing point concept. The easy first choice was the literal antonym for vanishing, which was appearing. In thinking about all things leading to one place, the expression of “all roads lead to Rome” came to mind, so metaphorically, the “Rome point” was another choice. However, I thought it obscure, as famous as the expression may be. It’d be among mostly native English speakers, and still required a conceptual leap in thinking to associate the two abstract ideas of light beams and Rome.

For the emanation point of view, it was easy to think of god, in the pagan and Christian sense of the word, but I thought Jesus sounded better, knowing and loving how Alaskans called beams of light through breaks in a cloudy sky, “Jesus rays”. So I came up with “Jesus point” as another alternative. However, not being a fan of religion, in general, and especially not wanting to give credit to one when no credit was due, I stuck with “appearing point”. That was more intuitive to associate it with vanishing point as there aren’t that many “point” expressions in English, like “breaking point”, to sort out which “point” the “appearing point” might have been playing off as a term.

So “appearing point” it was!

The W-series poems comprise mostly of haiku or tanka composed during walks I took on the portion of Halifax’s waterfront known as the Harbourwalk, during the warmer months of 2018 & 2019, when the Seabridge was in place.

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