I search your likewise probing eyes
in hopes that I might see
some evidence of who you are,
but I see only me.
My own reflection barricades
the windows to your soul.
I have no way to get inside,
no means to pay the toll.
It’s only when you look away,
when you no longer stare,
but turn your eyes to other things
that I find passage there.
It’s only when I’m not the one,
but others you perceive,
that I can know just how you feel
by what your eyes receive.
For when they look upon a child,
I there compassion spy.
Both tenderness and empathy
illuminate each eye.
I clearly through those windows see
delight, as long they gaze
upon a daughter as she sleeps
or as she softly prays.
There’s awe and wonder mirrored there
each time they pause to see
the colors of a sunset
or the blossoms on a tree.
And something else I can’t explain
that leads me to concede
that what you see can help me find
that which I also need.
Is evidence of things unseen,
is faith reflected there
each time you ponder sacred things
or testimony share?
My soul finds peace in who you are;
all doubts and fears depart
each time I enter unobserved
the windows to your heart.

In my first three novels, poetry plays a crucial role in the development of plot and characters; but the poems included in those novels were almost always produced independently of the writing of the novel to which they belong. “Windows” in no exception. It appears in the seventh chapter of my first novel, The Doll in McCallaway’s Store. In the novel it is written by one of the main characters as a way to communicate to his wife the role of her faith in their relationship. But it is also (both in and outside the novel) a poetic affirmation of the influence each of us has (or can have) on those we love and/or by whom we are loved. Although we can sometimes voluntarily change our countenance to hide our emotions, the eyes, “the windows to the soul”, as they are often called, are almost impossible to govern. We can feign a smile or a frown by changing the position of our mouth and facial muscles, but who can voluntarily put a sparkle in his or her eye? Our eyes betray us. In the novel I also quote the great Spanish poet Antonio Machado who said, “el ojo que ves no es ojo porque tú lo veas. Es ojo porque te ve.” (The eye that you see is not an eye because you see it. It is an eye because it sees you.)