I don’t know precisely what’s happening inside me. Old English words have been disturbed like leaves in a lake. Feorhbold, the OE word for “body” has floated up. Feor (as the unconscious knows) is a foreboding. Foreboding (as the unconscious knows) is knowing what’s going to happen to your body. Your body and mine. Feorhbold is also related to feorhus—a little house of fear.
Inside my left knee are the sad nights of youth, railway arches, dark skies. My left eye (the “good one”) holds residual pennies from foreign trips, the ones I shoved into the back of my sock drawer. There are Old English words for these vestiges of psyche.
Now of course there are countable fears and uncountable fears. One must be exact with the dictionary.
**
Walking my guide dog this morning we were passed by a woman driving a big SUV. She waved at us. She knows I can’t see. But she waved. I like that. “But how do you know she waved?” My feorhbold told me.
**
My demands are multiple. I want honesty from poetry. That’s because people in the village square often can’t muster it.
I want compassion in my nation’s discourse. What kind of fool am I? I’m the one with uncountable fears.
I want intellect that parts the cause from the effect. I’m tired of the balloon animal class of historians.
I’m tired of sorcerers.
**
Last night in the little house of fear I lay awake listening to branches scraping the eaves.
Planet of the Blind 