We manage so much without the poets
As for instance washing our hair
Or listening to houses—
It’s all a lark this living.
Me? I see and do not see
As blind people do.
Yellow bird I don’t know
What you are—this morning
Early, you were here
Poised like a dream face.
Though nothing in your life concerned me
I touched the window.
Life continues this way.
Many years ago
I met a shaman in Lapland.
He smelled like smoke
Though he did not smoke.
No poems for a hundred miles.
Planet of the Blind 