In the garden of earthly delights
Where sumac and cinnamon ferns
Exhaled like birds or animals
Where odors of humus and granite
Seemed things one could live on
I saw myself
Walking for the long, mineral
Chain gang of the dead,
As if there among the trees
They had elected me to live
On their behalf, upright, lonely,
Oddly bruised,
But walking swiftly
The live one who carries inside him
The carved Russian dolls
Of all the dead.
I went alone in the late October night
Toward a copse where the last sun
Streamed through branches,
A caprice of twilight,
Walked with my head up,
Shoulders squared
Like any living person
without a proper country
& who in turn
Hears the live one
And the dead ones
In the poor drums of his shoes.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
Yes – it is beautiful. I see the woods, smell the odors, feel the last bit of the sun’s light.
How to put this? Being a sighted person, and having recently read Planet of the Blind, and Eavesdropping, there’s no intention to make light of blindness. Yet it strikes me as how much everyone can learn from one another.
Oh – listening! With groups of children, we have them them close their eyes, cup their ears, and listen. What sounds they hear! How excited they become! Sounds that are always there, but unnoticed.
Here is a favorite image from this time of year:
Sumacs. In winter. A stand of them in the distance, heavily hung with clumps of plump red berries. Suddenly, the clumps fly away. Deception! A flock of birds had landed on the sumacs. What mischief.
Thank you for putting your life and thoughts into print.
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Beautiful, so beautifully written.
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