Looking Blind

Here it comes – the last entry for the NPM Flex Scavenger Hunt using prompt #13 – Write a Rant Prose poem or write about blindness. I haven’t ranted in quite awhile so I might be a little rusty…

Blind ambition
Blind love, blind justice
Blind rage and blind fury
The whole of the human race just stumbling around
I’m there too groping my way through life
A cave spider following a silken thread
Is it my thread or someone else’s?
I want to believe I’m in charge but I can’t see
The future, the past, and the present is
A jumble of sounds, smells, vibrations in the air
Bombs exploding, the smell of death approaching
I delude myself by saying I can see
And I do see – dust and dirty dishes, clock hands
Tasks and chores and age stalking me
Then I realize I’ve kept my spirit eyes closed tight
Because I don’t want to see the hungry and homeless
The poor, the traumatized, those fleeing war,
The marginalized and the corpses left to rot in the street
I am afraid to look because I just might see me

I can’t think of anything quite as terrifying as blindness. The possibility looms. All kinds of things can cause loss of sight. Some avoidable and many accidental and capricious in who will be affected. As afraid of physical blindness I confess to be, there is another blindness that is worse. When we lose sight in our “spirit eyes”. That is when we cannot see the goodness in the world. When we become blind to the divine spark in others. This kind of vision is being eradicated in this world. And it scares the bejeezus out of me. Even when physically blind, the soul can see the glory of creation. When I consider what heaven must be, I think that it is where love, hope, kindness, compassion, sympathy, praise, and thanksgiving and gratitude are made visible. Not to be seen with the eyes but with the heart and soul. My hope is that the eyes of the soul never lose the ability to see clearly…