What does it mean to have not seen, and then see? Put aside the neurology of brain function and think of beauty hidden behind a cloudy screen. Think of the blind man or woman as an ancient Chinese courtesan who sits all day behind a draped terrace. The world outside passes: the silhouettes of birds go by; you see a strange flittering darkness; the sunset comes; you see something like a failing lamp. When the moon rises over the willows you go out walking, feeling your way, and you are navigating by means of remembrance.  

But seeing anew you are no longer wandering the planet by memory. When guide dog Vidal and I walked Mannerheim Street in Helsinki we followed the vines of memory. Here is the botanical garden; here’s the city museum with its old copper doors; a path through lilacs. Now, seeing things, I discover the sighted world is more insistent and fast than the reveries of blind dream-walking. Was the world always this fast? My skin quivers, a stray piece of paper blows across the sidewalk at my feet. I want to get down on my hands and knees and grab it. I want to hold it up to the light and read with my one eye the letters that probably signify nothing. The blind self would imagine a written plea from a far island. The sighted man sees it’s just the gibberish of our economy. Up the street he goes. A teenaged boy on a skateboard flips backwards, falls on his ass, his Ipod flies into the air, his arms and legs are busy as a hundred men. His skateboard lands in a fountain. Vision tells me there’s a world unaffected by the self. I can’t tell you how thrilling this discovery is. I feel like Ralph Waldo Emerson, though without his visionary immanence–I’m not crossing the park and seeing something cosmological, instead I’m seeing the frosted leaves in early autumn and a boy flying.  

I look out over the forest of maples. The primacy of colors in October is flat out killing me. The red is an arrow that strikes me in the seat of my sentiments. I think heaven must be red. Heaven must be nearer. A red maple leaf has fallen on soil and it is the downward tip end of eternity. God help me! How do seeing people live this way? 

I see that the color red is the magnifying lens of god. I have to sit down. 

I see that all the colors in the world stand against locality–there can be no “local” because colors take it all away. A girl walks by with the world’s most perfect green hair. She is a citizen of no country. 

Now an old man comes down the street, a kind of scrawny angel, pushing a bent bicycle. He’s a war veteran and his medals are flashing in the sun. Compared to him everyone else in the world is motionless. 

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto