“Perhaps it’s what happens to a blind man
Who from so much not seeing then sees everything
And in a single focusing
Sees
With all the intensity of a diver
Who descends one single well in the whole ocean
And in that place all the fish are gathered.”
–Pablo Neruda
**
After cataract surgery on my left eye I am now nosing over strange objects, moving persistently from place to place like a half-blind surveyor, hungry for the knowings…
**
Two days ago while swimming in the lake I discovered a yellow orb on the bottom. It was down there with the lacerated stones and broken branches. I dove down and retrieved it. A yellow golf ball! I felt as though I had plucked a shrouded apple from a tree!
**
I do not want to write the poetry of eyes. But the mind’s dark channels, briefly illuminated by sparks…
**
The purpose of eyes, of course, is to strip away leaves.
**
My wayward delicate eye, that tiny cup. How it keeps slowly opening!
& so I am diving, like a whale in its course of ocean. Look at those fish swimming without direction.
Every fish shakes its own geometry…
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 