(The patient's denial that he
is completely blind. -- Steadman's)
The spotlights shine on the skaters at night --
the spiraling ease,
the thumbprint's rim --
and we dream of the light that only we can see.
What was the use of doing things and saying things
when all along
the eyes went where they wanted to.
We called our veers and bumps decisions
but they were less than that --
we thought we saw our house on fire,
and far below the safety net, spinning.
We said, we see, we see.
It doesn't work,
it isn't up to us,
some language says it
better than ours --
it goes .
Our watching builds walls,
our yardsticks mete out measure.
Pray for the world
and the insects and birds.
The magical abacus turns,
we visit the field
we thought we knew,
the familiar disc
on the familiar plow.
Certain gases contrive with stones,
and the waters we cling to
continue their long
conversation with mountain
and forest and
tree.
From a distance all we were were
big blue wheels;
we called them "our reasonableness,"
we called them "true circles,"
living in the world
and spinning with love.
It was our only course,
like the rudderless boat's,
to see land,
any land.
I was bound in copper coil,
you were a fire of slippery jewels.
From a distance we
were static electricity,
living in love with the stock-still world.
Crying under our floorboards
was our silver pyramid,
penned inside our walls were
ancient bulls
in bas relief.
Our flags were sins on lascivious oceans,
our word for regret was
"a whirlpool of blood, turning in space."
It sped on.
The dot
which was so small at first
became what it had to become,
a collapse into feeling.
Item broke down into item of light,
each one new and unknown.
It was "our home,"
a wave of slow motion,
which was all our lives forever.