Folded up white cane
with fat rounded tip.
Black refusing sunglasses.
This is a younger man.
The friend comes
with her care showing.
The thought: (this is my head)
that there's some pretending going on,
that I'll catch a furtive glance.
Alight here now.
Blue's bled down
to tops of trees
and made hot roofs.
Arch Sun above
corner house on Abbey Cresent,
the garden's Union Flag
all gone now.
Wasteland in front
a long time empty.
The blinding Sun.
Did you catch that glance behind refusing sunglasses, WB? Did one end of the Arch Sun go right through it?
ReplyDeleteBlue bleeding down to top, now that's a sight!
I don't know where this ugly prejudice comes from but every time I see somebody with a cane or a guide dog, I have to chase the thought away that there's no visual impairment, that it's a scam of some kind. No, no glance.
ReplyDeleteThose cloudless skies always unnerve me with the Sun beating the heat down on heads.
To imagine or suppose or suspect things are not what they appear to be is merely to be a citizen of our jolly present world, as I take it.
ReplyDeleteThough we live on what is famously the heaviest-trafficked and most lethal thoroughfare in this area, there is a man who lives just up the street -- in fact the longest-surviving of our neighbours, once the man immediately next door was killed crossing this same street -- who is totally, absolutely and undeniably blind. It is a marvel and a wonder to see him bravely navigate the crossings on foot, with cane and hard helmet. If there happens to be another pedestrian, the man will ask for guidance, and I have more than once so assisted him. The first time I led him up to his house, when he then went inside the darkened abode, I was for a moment surprised to note that no light went on.
"To imagine or suppose or suspect things are not what they appear to be is merely to be a citizen of our jolly present world". There's much in this. How does trust function as a value now? And in a world glutted with images, blindness places you on the other side of the frame. You become a reminder of life virtually disappeared.
ReplyDeleteBrave is right. The limits to vision of the 4x4 driver are particularly tight, that boxed up ego blinkers much.