First, the self. Then, the observing self. <br />The self that acts and the self that watches. This <br />The starting point, the place where the mind begins, <br />Whether the mind of an individual or <br />The mind of a species. When I was a boy <br />I struggled to understand. For if I know <br />The self that watches, another watching self <br />Must see the watcher, then another watching that, <br />Another and another, and where does it end? <br />So my mother sent me to the barber shop, <br />My first time, to get my hair "cut for a part" <br />(Instead of the dutch boy she'd always given me), <br />As I was instructed to tell the barber. She <br />Dispatched me on my own because the shop, <br />Which had a pool table in the back, in that <br />Small town was the men's club, and no woman <br />Would venture there. Was it my first excursion <br />On my own into the world? Perhaps. I sat <br />In the big chair. The wall behind me held <br />A huge mirror, and so did the one in front, <br />So that I saw my own small strange blond head <br />With its oriental eyes and turned up nose repeated <br />In ever diminishing images, one behind <br />Another behind another, and I tried <br />To peer farther and farther into the succession <br />To see the farthest one, diminutive in <br />The shadows. I could not. I sat rigid <br />And said no word. The fat barber snipped <br />My hair and blew his brusque breath on my nape <br />And finally whisked away his sheet, and I <br />climbed down. I ran from that cave of mirrors <br />A mile and a half to home, to my own room <br />Up under the eaves, which was another cave. <br />It had no mirrors. I no longer needed mirrors.<br /><br />Hayden Carruth<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-i-i/
