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Bonding means talking. I told Corky she was my familiar. It was just for fun. I got to be the old blind shaman who spoke with animals. I amused myself. I amused her. I made up little songs. Most of them were ridiculous–old show tunes with her name–but she liked it, for as she guided she heard how I loved her. And best of all, we got to do this all day. All day we gloried in the shifting energies and hopes of our combined spirit. 

 

Who gets to do this? Just go along all day singing and trusting? I remembered a visit I once paid to the poet Robert Bly–I took a Greyhound all the way to Moose Lake, Minnesota. I arrived at Bly’s house but no one was home. The whole thing felt like a fairy tale. Then I heard the poet, coming up the street, all alone, bundled in a black coat, singing loudly as if the squirrels were part of his tribe. Later I’d learn the physicist Richard Feinman sang the same way–sang whatever struck him, sang to a glass of orange juice if it suited him. And there we were, Corky-dog and her soppy man, singing our way down Varick Street in Greenwich Village. 

 

Picasso said, “to draw you must close your eyes and sing.” Bonding with a guide means just that–we draw a new landscape with our motion, our tune; one of us with eyes closed, the other watching as we fly down the street. 

 

The first thing I had to understand was we’d be flying instead of walking.

 

Sometimes this was comical. In Grand Central Station people scattered before us. Corky made her way deftly around inattentive people and loiterers, but would open the jets in a clear space. People who saw us coming darted out of the way. I saw that Corky liked this game. Her song back to me was this delight. I could hear her: “Watch me make this man jump!” 

 

Occasionally she’d stop and stare a man down. Slow man noticed; got out of the way.   

 

Bonding had its amusements. 

 

“You see,” I said to her, “I’ve never been amused by my blindness before.”

 

 

 

Dear Disability Community Leaders:

 

Are you ready to push the disability treaty through to success in the U.S. Senate?  Our opponents are sure ready.  They continue to mislead about the treaty and its impact on parental rights and national sovereignty—the very same scare tactics they used last year to defeat it by a very close 5 votes.  We must—and we will—win this next time around.  Our chance is coming soon—and it could be our last chance for a long time.   

 

Last week, Chairman Robert Menendez of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told a small group of community representatives that a hearing in Committee will occur soon!  We must be ready to push for the U.S. to ratify the treaty and everyone must help.

                                                            

I know we can do it!  Together, we are now over 700 organizations strong in support of the disability treaty—more than double where we were last year—thanks to your organization’s support!  While the opposition continues to spread misinformation, we can raise our voices of truth about the disability treaty.  

 

The Senate has previously passed a resolution for ratification that was clear: our national sovereignty and parental rights are not threatened by the treaty.  But our opponents refuse to accept the reality.  This is not only an insult to the bipartisan supporters for the treaty—including veterans Bob Dole and Tammy Duckworth—but a disservice to the one billion people with disabilities in the world who look to the United States to lead global progress toward equality, dignity, and opportunity.

 

Together, amplifying our voices on the Hill and around the country, we are a powerful national movement for the disability treaty.  Now we must prepare for the next push.  So here is what I ask you to do now:

 

1. Prepare your organization’s letter of support to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Start fresh, or simply brush up the letter you sent last year.  As soon as we know a hearing date, we will announce a Letter Blitz in support of the Disability Treaty.  You must be ready to send!

   A sample letter is attached for your convenience that you can customize. You will also be contacted by one of the members of CRPD Ratification Coordination Team to support you in this effort.  Eventually, all letters will be sent to the Senate Foreign Relations committee and can later be used in a 100-state action for the floor vote. But, given the government shut down, we do not want these sent until they will have the greatest impact.

2. Sign and distribute the petition for ratification.  Every individuals should sign this and share the link with your friends, colleagues and communities.  If everyone sends this link, we can build an overwhelming number of signatures that cannot be ignored. www.handicap-international.us/support_the_disability_treaty  
3. Increase and spread your social media. TWEET DAILY!   Direct Tweets of support to your Senators by placing their name after the @ symbol (@jerrymoran for example).  Use the following hashtags: #isupportcrpd, #crpd, #disabilitiestreaty.  Consider following other great advocates like @USICD, @ashettle @RhondaNeuhaus @IntDisability @auntpip.

 

If every organization will start with these three steps now, we will be positioned to make a big impression when the treaty process begins again in the Senate.  Thank you for your continued support on this effort.  More information will be sent as soon as we have it.  Together, we WILL succeed!

 

All my best,

David

 

 

 

David Morrissey

Executive Director

United States International Council on Disabilities

1012 14^th St. NW, Suite 105

Washington, DC 20005

Office: (202) 347-0102

Mobile: (301) 787-2598

Fax: (202) 347-0351

dmorrissey@usicd.org

www.usicd.org

 

My dear teacher, the poet Marvin Bell said in a 1980 interview with Nancy Bunge (at the time) of Michigan State University:

 

“Intelligence applied to what the poem is about–that, to me, is worthy and important; poems without intelligence don’t interest me at all. Poetry which is just a theme and doesn’t have any mentality operating in it interests me less than poetry which makes a turn, or discovery or or further exploration in the course of itself. That’s along the lines of what I meant by visible indications of intelligence in a poem.”

 

I like this a good deal. In fact more than a good deal. I also know what it cost Marvin Bell to say this–for poetry, as a subset of the academic American creative writing explosion tends to abjure intelligence in favor of technique or sensation, and god help you if you bother to say it. 

 

Perhaps no sensible person ought care about this. As my Finnish grandmother would say: “beyond the woods things are bad.” Why should we wrangle about the rules of Monopoly? 

 

Yet we may care if visible indications of intelligence are central to poems because they offer an anodyne to the news. William Carlos Williams famous lines remind us of the stakes:

 

Look at

what passes for the new.

You will not find it there but in

despised poems.

•     It is difficult
  to get the news from poems

yet men die miserably every day

for lack

of what is found there. 

 

It is difficult to get the news from poems–and for news let us substitute indications of intelligence, which in turn means developing thought, moving thought, a thing beyond rhetoric, for the latter tells us of logos, ethos, and pathos but can only hint at flowering ideas. 

 

Augustine, who had the very lightest and lyrical touch as a philosopher of art and beauty said ‘reason’ depends on a certain rhythmic measure. Poetry and reason were freed from the neo-Platonists by that old Saint who stole pears and lived the most profligate of lives when young. 

 

The visible indications of intelligence…

 

Here’s an early poem by Marvin Bell that exemplifies reason and the rhythmic measure:

 

“Treetops”

 

My father moves through the south hunting duck.

It is warm, he has appeared

like a ship, surfacing, where he floats, face up,

through the ducklands. Over the tops 

of trees duck will come, and he strains

not to miss seeing the first of each flock, 

although it will be impossible to shoot one

from such an angle, face up like that 

in a floating coffin where the lid obstructs 

half a whole view, if he has a gun. 

Afterlives are full of such hardships. 

 

One meets, for example, in one’s sinlessness,

high water and our faithlessness,

so the dead wonder if they are imagined

but they are not quite.

 

How could they know we know

when the earth shifts deceptively 

to set forth ancestors to such pursuits?

My father will be asking, Is this fitting?

And I think so–I, who, with the others,

coming on the afterlife after the fact

in a dream, in a probable volume, in a 

probable volume of dreams, think so.

 

**

 

“Why is sorrow distressful,” writes Augustine. “Because it tries to rend what used to be one. Therefore it is troublesome and dangerous to become one with what can be separated.” (And there’s your saint, small “s” for whom the afterlife can never be a dream–and is beyond probability for its a matter of faith. Poor Augustine, who spoke much of reason but had little it seems. Poetry is hard news.)

 

I’m grateful for the hard news and the poets who leave it on my doorstep. 

 

Thank you Marvin. 

 

 

Yesterday a former student and dear friend wrote to say she was going to read some of my poems and prose to a dying woman. I read her email early, the sun only a suggestion in the apple branches, and I was overcome by a sense of unworthiness. Who am I–a poet, a minor one; a fumbling man? 

 

 I thought, “I hope my writing is soul-worthy.” 

 

I thought, “I live in graceful tension, affirming, doubtful, hopeful.” 

 

Then I took my dogs for a walk. Entered the carnival of day. 

 

But all day, standing at a Xerox machine, moving books on a desk, opening my office windows, I thought of Ivy, the woman in hospice who was hearing my poetry and prose. 

 

I’m with you Ivy. Our minutes are steeped in music which we help compose, adding grace notes, though the greater hand is elsewhere. 

 

I thought of Rilke:

 

My life is not this steeply sloping hour,

in which you see me hurrying.

Much stands behind me; I stand before it like a

tree;

I am only one of my many mouths

and at that, the one that will be still the soonest.

 

I am the rest between two notes,

which are somehow always in discord

because death’s note wants to climb over–

but in the dark interval, reconciled,

they stay there, trembling.

And the song goes on, beautiful.

 

—translated by Robert Bly

 

  

 

BLIND AMERICANS EQUALITY DAY, 2013

– – – – – – –

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Blind and visually impaired persons have always played an important role in American life and culture, and today we recommit to our goals of full access and opportunity. Whether sprinting across finish lines, leading innovation in business and government, or creating powerful music and art, blind and visually impaired Americans imagine and pursue ideas and goals that move our country forward. As a Nation, it is our task to ensure they can always access the tools and support they need to turn those ideas and goals into realities.

My Administration is committed to advancing opportunity for people with disabilities through the Americans with Disabilities Act and other important avenues. In June of this year, the United States joined with over 150 countries in approving a landmark treaty that aims to expand access for visually impaired persons and other persons with print disabilities to information, culture, and education. By facilitating access to books and other printed material, the treaty holds the potential to open up worlds of knowledge. If the United States becomes a party to this treaty, we can reduce the book famine that confronts the blind community while maintaining the integrity of the international copyright framework.

The United States was also proud to join 141 other countries in signing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009, and we are working toward its ratification. Americans with Disabilities, including those who are blind or visually impaired, should have the same opportunities to work, study, and travel in other countries as any other American, and the Convention can help us realize that goal.

To create a more level playing field and ensure students with disabilities have access to the general education curriculum, the Department of Education issued new guidance in June for the use of Braille as a literacy tool under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This guidance reaffirms my Administration’s commitment to using Braille to open doors for students who are blind or visually impaired, so every student has a chance to succeed in the classroom and graduate from high school prepared for college and careers.

We have come a long way in our journey toward a more perfect Union, but we still have work ahead. We must fulfill the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and expand the freedom to make of our lives what we will. On this day, we celebrate the accomplishments of our blind and visually impaired citizens, and we recommit to building a Nation where all Americans, including those who are blind or visually impaired, live with the assurance of equal opportunity and equal respect.

By joint resolution approved on October 6, 1964 (Public Law 88-628, as amended), the Congress designated October 15 of each year as “White Cane Safety Day” to recognize the contributions of Americans who are blind or have low vision. Today, let us recommit to ensuring we remain a Nation where all our people, including those with disabilities, have every opportunity to achieve their dreams.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 15, 2013, as Blind Americans Equality Day. I call upon public officials, business and community leaders, educators, librarians, and Americans across the country to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eleventh day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.

BARACK OBAMA

 

 

 

Sunlight in apple branches and I see one may cross the country and not get anywhere. 

 

Hello Lew Welch. “Teach the children about the cycles/the life cycles.” 

 

This morning I’ill sing with the full length of my body like Caruso. 

 

Knowledge is a form of purity and needs language. 

 

Picking up fallen apples for the horses.

 

My nation is dying. Ice comes to the pond. 

 

Neruda: and I went my own way, deciphering….

 

 

I met two poets from Ireland while exploring the Cornell University art museum Asian wing.  They decided to accompany me.  But Guiding Eyes Corky suddenly sat before a statue of the Buddha of compassion and refused to move. “I wonder if she’s a Dharma dog, or an anti-Dharma dog,” said Tom, who had a Dubliner’s perfectly ironic accent. And then Corky barked. Just once. “Dharma,” said Fergus. “Obviously pro-Dharma.” And we all agreed. Corky didn’t want to leave the statue. She sat before it, her head cocked to one side. 

 

Walking home in late March snow I recalled that in classical Buddhism dogs were not believed to have Buddha nature. In the old scholasticism dogs were thought to be  insufficiently awake to gain enlightenment. But the masters hadn’t met Corky. I saw her comprehend a statue of the Buddha–the one of rebirth–she let out one firm bark. One only. I told myself I wouldn’t be sentimental. But I saw how the moment spoke through a dog and a Bodhisatva. It was enough for me to experience the chills. 

 

Its hard to say when the bond with a guide dog occurs. Does it happen during the training month at guide dog school as she directs you around obstacles or takes evasive action during street crossings? I suppose its possible to bond instantly with a dog just as people may fall immediately in love. Yet even “love at first sight” has to survive its honeymoon. With a guide the first year is your honeymoon–but its a honeymoon of streets and airplanes; of subways and escalators; of planned and unplanned days. 

 

When you depart guide dog school for the first time you’re instructed to stay in your home neighborhood for six months. In those days I lived in downtown Ithaca, New York, right above the famous “Moosewood” vegetarian restaurant. Staying home was hardly onerous–we’d take the old caged elevator downstairs for afternoon bread, soup, and salad, and Corky, the most lion headed yellow Labrador one could imagine would sit proudly beside me, smiling the way dogs do, and pretty soon I knew everyone in Ithaca from the socialist mayor to the chief of police. It was a fairy tale. I’d been an isolated disabled person. Now I was meeting people–good people, the people who find you when your life has shifted imperceptibly and you’re happy at last. Love waits for no reminding from the beauty of our world–it is there. You know it. We talked philosophy with a local professor over Polish potato soup. 

 

Authentic beauty is filled with the life of the true said Plotinus. Corky and I were quivering with “true” and I saw–felt–the business of walking the world’s stage with a guide dog really was a lover’s holiday. In turn everything was new, the local art museum was a grand place to visit–Corky and I walked through galleries where I’d absorb blues and reds without definition and the light of Cayuga valley poured through tall windows. 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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No one knows what its like to be a dog though many believe they’ve been dogs in dreams. There’s a certain kind of running dream I suspect I share with my dogs, the one in which my feet can’t move fast enough. Every dog has this dream and every person on earth has had it. “Put your hand by your dogs nose when she’s having a nightmare,” says a friend, a guide dog trainer,”she’ll smell your scent; then you can wake her up by calling gently.”

 

The essence of companionship: how we help one another in and out of dreams.