–For Ken and Kit
When I was very small I thought there was a man inside the window. He was frosted like the glass and more than once I knew he was the one doing the talking. I think he’s asleep now in the apportioned mansion of collective childhood. Meantime I try to think what I knew back then, not as a Romantic, but because a blind child hears in the humming of houses an “echo game” –a left-brain/right brain link between facts and bigger abstractions.
Example: today snow fell from the roof and I thought, “international date line”–somewhere a ship was crossing to yesterday. Bang. A timpani. A thing pops up. All poets do it. But kids with disabilities, they do it even more. Bang. A dragon glitters in a hedgerow. Bang.There’s your father’s whisky in a glass, the sun shining through. Bang. There’s your blue-scarf whisper of quiet amusement because they left you alone. I didn’t want to be forgiven. I didn’t care much for games. Bang. There was a fiddle. It must have belonged to my grandfather. He didn’t like music, but he left it for me. Bang. Whenever I was in danger I saw that old violin.
Planet of the Blind 