Planet of the Blind

Corky and I went to Jackson, Mississippi for a conference on blindness. We exited our hotel and two African-American men jumped aside as they saw us. Around a corner we went. We met a black woman who ran away. I commented on this to a blind man later that day. He was a white blind man. He said, “Oh yeah, black people don’t like dogs.” But I thought, “Black people don’t like dogs in the hands of white people, even blind white people.” I was sad all day. I felt the old distressed garments of American racism falling down like scarves. 

 

The schismatic inheritances America offers are enough to make a grown man and his dog weep. How does a dog weep? She stops wagging her tail. It was not long before I noticed Corky wasn’t wagging in Jackson. Maybe she was picking up on my mood. Maybe. But a dog who loves people must also sense their fear and feel a compensatory sadness. 

 

Wallace Stevens wrote: “The world is ugly and the people are sad.” He could have added dogs.  

 

Photo: Easter Island Statues

Vidal is stoic. He likes to sit and stare at distances. In Port Townsend, Washington, he sits beside me in the strange, weak sunlight of the American northwest and he sits so still I think he’s turned into a statue. He’s having a rendezvous with Chinese ghosts. But then, as my imagination starts working on his general state, he turns back into Vidal and eats a slow moving bee. I’m talking to a poet when it happens. “That was artful,” says Sam. “He just plucked it out of the air.” So Vidal is part guide dog and part something else. The something else eludes me.

 

This is the wonderful thing about dogs. We know them but only just so. Their pulses differ from ours. 

 

Vidal’s pulse reinforces his hunger which is tuned to allotments and rubbish. His hunger upon which he concentrates completely until it becomes a third party in our life together. 

 

 

At the home of friends he sneaks away from me and eats five pounds of Chinchilla food. Later that night as I’m sleeping in a guest room I hear him in the dark. He stands up and lets out a single moan, then proceeds to vomit wildly with long hacking coughs and convulsions. I stagger to my feet and cry for help. 

 

Chinchilla food is alfalfa and inside a dog it expands—Vidal has turned into a field, a farm, he’s a staggering barfing alfalfa ranch. 

 

As he stumbles around the room he produces whole statues of alfalfa, monuments sculpted by his digestion. They look like the Easter Island stele. And they’re strangely dry as I lift them. “Ready mades,” I say to David, whose house has been defiled. “He’s a regular Marcel Duchamp.” 

 

Groucho Marx famously said: “Outside of a book, a dog is man’s best friend. Inside a dog its too dark to read.” 

 

But Groucho was wrong. Inside a dog is a room with votive alfalfa demi-gods; where moonlight shines down on green and knobby figures of pure appetite. 

 

Photo of Agnes Moorehead from “Bewitched”

When my friend Bill Peace wrote yesterday about meeting a gas station attendant who was clearly addicted to meth amphetamine, and the intersection of that encounter with his own disability, I was reminded of the dozens of times I’ve been in the company of drunks, addicts, and broken wanderers. Traveling blind differs from sighted travel in only one respect: strangers are more likely to approach when you can’t see. They’re generally not malevolent, though I can’t prove it—my impression is they’re lost. Its ironic they should gravitate to a blind person. Over the years I’ve come to see this gravitation as something spiritual. I don’t mean this in a churchly sense, but more like Carl Jung’s analysis of UFOs. A blind person going confidently about his or her business means something to hapless wanderers. Once in New York City I was grabbed by an Asian man who dragged me across the street. On the far side he actually bowed and then ran away. He never said a thing. My guide dog was as stumped as I was. They didn’t teach us about this at guide dog school. The man was working something out. Doing some penance. 

 

What’s clear is that disability always represents something—its like the mirrored ball in a disco. You may be—no, likely are—minding your own business. You’re pumping gas like Bill Peace was doing, or you’re standing on a corner thinking about tartar sauce, why do they call it “tartar sauce”—did the Tartars actually make sauce—when a man disguised as a man appears. He says he has headaches. He says he lost his job. Says inside his clenched fist he has a ruby that once belonged to Agnes Moorehead. These things happen all the time when you have a visible disability. There is no such thing as shining, neutral weather. Not if you are a cripple abroad in America.

Photo of Stephen Kuusisto and his second guide dog “Vidal” 

I joke about Vidal, saying things like, “well he’s got a “complex”. “Back when he was a wolf he never knew when his next meal was coming.” In Graz, Austria he eats a bird’s wing while I sit up late under the moon in a garden with poets. The poets drink beer. Vidal snacks on raven feathers. For once he doesn’t cough them up. Does a dog who eats feathers fly in his sleep? Is he self medicating? What reckless medicines does he require and for what conditions?

 

The term for strange canine eating is “pica” and no one knows what causes it. Some say its a quest for missing nutrients. Others argue its just a form of attention seeking. With Vidal I sense its neither of these things—he’s the owner, the possessor really, of a very fast mind. He’s bored and the world is filed with wild promises. 

 

I come to see his eating as pure curiosity. What’s inside the rose? 

 

In Vidal’s view, both shade and silence are edible. 

 

The fact is, he’s really smart. 

 

Of course he is. But in his case something’s systematically deranged about the thing. I keep saying he’s good in traffic. He’s exceptional. Walking in downtown Graz he figures out how bike paths work—sees they’re potentially lethal—and moreover, sees I don’t understand them. 

He pushes his body against my legs, prevents me from colliding with a cyclist who flaps like a banner. 

 

Then, as I praise him, he eats some eggshells. 

 

 

 

Always the doctor leaning close, saying you’re alive. You raise your hands, open your eyes. The doctor is shabby. He’s asymmetrical like a Roman Emperor. There’s something wrong with the doctor. And even though you’re the monster—hence, proprioceptive, fast, clear, you know you’ll never get the doc to admit his shortcomings.

The Dog-man is different from the man he used to be. He knows we can only love the things we can conceive. He loves the moon, wind, old friends met by chance. He forgets his enemies though their smell reminds him to be cautious when necessary. You can count on the nose.  

 

Another way to say it: dogs don’t worry about the sensible soul. 

 

 

 

 

By Andrea Scarpino

 

My coach played the video: speed work on the heavy bag. My uppercuts looked good: my balance good, legs strong, chin down. 

 

Then my hooks. I started to laugh. What was I doing, slapping my arms limply at the bag like that? Distracting my opponent with how ridiculous I looked? 

 

Next day, another round of speed work. My coach told me to step closer to the bag, to put my weight into it. I thought about the video. And something clicked: hook after hook, the bag made a deep and satisfying sound. I punched harder than I’ve ever punched anything. I heard my coach cheer. I heard Zac cheer. My hands in my boxing gloves were light and solid and free from fear. 

 

And that may be the key: fearful. Fearless. 

 

I have lived so much of my life in fear. Fear of physical pain (it always returns eventually). Fear of losing people I love (I have, I will). Fear of never being smart enough (for what?) or good enough (for what?) or the best in something (what?).  In college, I wore my glasses to bed because I was afraid of not being able to see if someone broke in. For years, I slept with a knife under my mattress. 

 

Doing mitt work one night in the ring, my coach said I was “flinch-y.” Hitting her red mitts, I could feel my eyes flinch, I could feel my body flinch. I just couldn’t stop it from happening. And I couldn’t name fear’s object: I knew she wouldn’t hit me back with her mitts. I knew we were only training. She kept telling me to hit harder. I kept flinching. 

 

But that moment with the hooks, I felt no fear. I punched and punched and I heard the sound of my body hitting the bag and I heard cheering and I felt no fear. Body in action. Body in the moment. 

 

“Very few of us live with perfectly intact bodies,” one of my mentors says. 

 

I’m writing a book-length poem about the body in pain. My body in pain, the bodies of others in pain: football players, Frida Kahlo, young cancer patients. I’m writing a book-length poem about the ash tree: ashes to ash tree. I’m writing a book-length poem about how medicine failed me. Continues to fail me. 

 

“We write what we need to understand,” another mentor says. 

 

That night with the hooks—maybe it only lasted 20 seconds, but for those seconds, I understood my body. It did what I wanted it to do. I didn’t feel pain or fear. I didn’t flinch.

By Andrea Scarpino

 

My very first writing conference. I was a terrified graduate student attending session after session of writers whose work I had never read, who were smarter and better informed, who seemed to know all there was to know about publishing and craft and how to break a line. I was jostled in long hotel hallways as I tried to find the right conference rooms. I was jostled waiting for slow elevators, for bathroom stalls, for coffee. I remember feeling almost nothing but overwhelmed. 

 

And then, Maxine Kumin. A small, stuffy, crowded room packed with people, mostly women, and too few chairs. I sat on the floor with dozens of others—that horrible hotel carpeting. I remember she read from Inside the Halo and Beyond. I remember she looked impossibly old, even then, impossibly fragile, her body stiff from the surgeries and recovery she had endured. 

 

I sat in awe. 

 

When she finished, we all stood to applaud, and a line quickly formed in front of the table where she stood. Some people asked her to sign their books, but I hadn’t thought to bring any. Some people asked her smart-sounding poetry questions, but I couldn’t find anything smart to say. I felt completely empty. 

Finally, I reached the front of the line. She stood, impossibly small. And I started to cry. 

 

“Your work has meant so much to me,” I said, the only words that came. 

 

She smiled and said “Thank you.” And I walked away. 

 

My moment with Maxine Kumin and all I could do was cry. But isn’t that what the very best writers do to us? Take away our words. Take away our breath. 

 

When I texted a friend that Kumin had died, my phone’s autocorrect changed “Kumin” to “luminosity.” As in, “the intrinsic brightness of a celestial object.” As in, “bright or shining, especially in the dark.” 

 

An outrageously appropriate autocorrect—because that’s what Kumin’s work does for me, sheds light, reminds me to pay attention, stay present in this world, stay present with this world’s beauty, this world’s awfulness. Her work is daring and quiet, bold, full of light and loss. Her work says things I didn’t always know poetry was allowed to say. Her work makes me feel safe that such brilliance exists in the world. 

 

More poetry books are published every year than any one of us could read. But voices like Kumin’s? Like her contemporary, Adrienne Rich? Books that speak unspeakable truths? That dare? That are narrative and lyrical, mired in the personal and the political, that are brave and brave and brave? 

 

“How are you taking her death?” my friend texted back. 

 

“I somehow thought she would live forever,” I replied. 

 

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

  

Sometimes we see things with a critical eye—an effect takes place—we see through the wrong end of a telescope and though everything’s small, things are clear. “That’s who you are,” you say. “Yes, that’s who you really are.” 

 

I had one of those revelatory experiences with dog number two. Vidal was under my feet in the Archbold Theater in Syracuse. We were in the front row. The stage was inches away and accordingly we were just five feet from Sam Waterston. Sam was appearing as James Tyrone in “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” which meant he was playing the role of an unhappy man and as far as I could see he was doing a fine job it it when Vidal let out a groan. It was not a standard harumph—the sound a dog makes when turning itself. It was a note of misery—and loud enough to be heard throughout the theater. I leaned forward and whispered in his ear, stroked his face. Above me Waterston was lamenting Tyrone’s life—a life spent in the service of a single role—the life of a second rate actor. Tyrone was filled with regrets. Vidal groaned louder. It was a crude sound; an athletic noise. I rubbed his face with my foot. People stirred in their seats. I knew Sam Waterston couldn’t see the dog. He was working hard, emoting, as groans were rising around him. I slumped as low as I could manage. From above I heard: “It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a seagull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must be a little in love with death!” From below came another dog groan. a noise like a ship coming apart.  

 

From above I heard: ““Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken.And if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, or whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; and the wind, wave, star, bird, clock, will answer you: ‘It is the hour to be drunken! Be drunken, if you would not be martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.”

 

“Oh God,” said the dog. “Oh God Oh God Oh Lord!” I leaned close to him. Whispered in his ear. I said: “C’mon boy, you can get through this. Its just Eugene O’Neil.” And we did survive though Vidal moaned like O’Neil’s fog horn and I wanted to stand up and shout out: “Its not me, Sam, its this dog! He’s doing some kind of martyr thing!” 

 

As soon as the lights came up I fled with my friends Dave and Adrianne and it was at their home the next morning I learned what ailed Vidal for as we stood in the grassy yard he excreted a long, black gym sock—a whole garment—and I could only surmise what agony he’d endured lying under a theater seat while O’Neil’s sad men talked on and on about their meaningless lives in fog. 

 

And I, a veteran guide dog handler knew I’d a different creature before me. Dog number one would only carry the socks. Vidal was a devouring kind. 

 

 

America is consecrating the war void. This is accomplished by kicking the old and inform and the very young straight to the ditch. We have a new farm bill! The Democrats assisted the GOP in cutting food stamps to the bone. There is no “back up method” to assure the poor will eat. The war void wins. And it wins when we no longer talk of human life, save to say its inconvenient. The war void wins. 

 

The war void isn’t really a void of course. It has flesh and blood. But its not yours or mine.  

 

“Cuts to the nation’s food stamp program hit 48 million Americans this week, including more than 9 million elderly and disabled people.”

 

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