Chosen for its subtle image and emotional transparency, “Transparency” won second place in the fall 2016 SLAM poetry contest. Written by C@SE student, Kean Riegel, “Transparency” will be published in the 2017 spring magazine. Riegel’s winning submission has been reproduced below:

Transparency

Lo! A window! How it can provide joy from a view.
But alas, that window! Whose own joy resides in the
Rays of the Sun, bringing happiness and warmth.

Oh how it can seem invisible when the rays race –
Race on in ignorance…

To a wall, what utilities can it serve?
Security? Support? Cannot a window do likewise, and more?
But sadly, with all its services, the window has no power –

No power to attract those rays.
It suffers as the warm rays carelessly pass through and fixate on the wall.

Can the window do anything to help itself?
Respect and meekness are given to the powerful rays,
Hoping to receive even one photon in acknowledgment.

Are the rays just as ignorant to their own source of joy?
For the window can magnify the rays as they pass through its layers.

Does the wall have depth? The rays cannot know,
Ricocheting unsuccessfully from the first layer.
The window has depth, but the rays – speeding so rapidly – never take notice…

Oh, to feel the warmth and happiness!
To grasp that which can elude!