The Gradual Colors of Blindness

Raised in the home of an optometrist

good vision was often the topic

as the family settled for a meal

in the nook on the corner

of the house with windows

that looked east to the hill

and west to the black mountains

where the sun blazed at its setting

Father mixed the complexity

of long and strange words

with something his boys

could understand

He spoke of his day

staring at the eyes

of patients with diabetes

macular degeneration

and the gradual loss of colors

For someone who had given his life

over to the care of those who

needed his care and concise observations

pain could be easily felt

as he spoke of someone going blind

Jorge Luis Borges was not his patient

because he lived in South America

far from the west of South Dakota

Borges spoke of his descending vision

losing blacks and other colors

one or two at a time in slow progression

Those who know these conditions

have sympathy for the one going blind

Yet thinking about these changes

and the blind who have crossed

the paths of my father's sons

there must be something special

in the loss of a sense

as other senses take charge

as the memory of visions

sharpen into the razors of thought

There is no desire to be blind

however eyes no longer drawn

this way and that

some kind of peace must settle

into the minds of those blind

who render the remembered

pile of black letters

into the word pictures

of the astonished void

that is the life of most people

Just as dust settles into the cracks

of a table or between the letters

on a keyboard

words gather no dirt

with no need for a polish in the mind

if they are properly dipped

in the colors of a blind man's creation

There's Borges yes but also

Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder

Jose Feliciano and Ronnie Milsap

Moondog and Doc Watson

These colors can make the legs weak

or force a toe to tap beyond all control

Father helped those near to blindness

see the dimming of the world

knowing well that something else

could rise from the pool

of remembered visions

What is left of each life's way

by accident birth or advanced age

needs no pity or tears of sorrow

but a closer look by inner eyes

of those who still can see

to recognize the possibilities

of darkness as a gift

for a golden frame

around the blazing colors

spilling from a changing soul

Barry G. Wick