For Those Who Are in Need

 

–lines after Adrienne Rich

 

You who are going blind this year, alone in a whirlwind of smoke, 

I know you feel dead among crystals, that you sit by a window

Dreaming of gilt boxes, effigies, comets, bells. 

I know about the buried flowers, your gifts of solace, 

Know how cold they are–saw them in the ordered veins of your shadow. 

I see in you–something true in women and men 

Who lose their sight–a land without name, tenuous and green.

I know you are going to ask about a color, a dream 

Of amber and inheritance. What are the eyes for

But memories carried far into the night?

You who are going blind, standing under the antique stars,

I am writing this poem for you: because life lives inside a life

Like a worm inside a thistle, because blindness 

Is fury and perfume and endless murmuring.   

 

SK