Poem by Jim Culleny

Two Hands

First time I saw Escher’s two hands drawing themselves I thought,
how cool this picture is in its absurd beauty, then much later,
as in now, it comes to me as I give my cognition another chance,
another shot at understanding, more clout in the process of perception,
I think, this is a fundamental truth, a reality truer than the day-to-day
fever dreams of imagination, a truth offering “Eureka!” the word ever followed
by an exclamation point which has just explicitly summed and shattered
the boundary between ignorance and understanding. 

There they are, two hands poised with pencils, expressing
the extraordinary, uncomplicated truth that from
cradle
to grave we are all drawing shifting renditions
of ourselves.

by Jim Culleny
12/16/25

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