SIGHTLESS SIGHT

Picture Courtesy: www.3dluvr.com


It was a Sunday,
He sat next to me throughout
The entire service,
Sang his heart out
And clapped out a bit too noisily
But only one thing about him struck me as odd,
He had dark sunglasses on
Even though the morning sun
Seemed content waiting outside
Among the trees,
Engaging some birds in conversation.


Come collection time
He gave me perspective,
Telling me a thing or two,
About his fancy church sunglasses
Come our turn,
He leaned a bit forward,
Reached under the pew on which we sat,
Producing a white cane.
He then began tracing a path with his cane,
Left me wide-eyed,
As though I had just witnessed magically insane.


Church had just come to an end,
As I got off my knees and proceeded to leave,
He tapped me on the shoulder
And began to speak,
He spoke of heaven,
Said he had seen heaven,
I could not muster a look more quizzical,
I thought him over the bend,
And nothing more than comical,
For he was blind,
Yet he spoke of things that required sight,
Pretty magical.
I sat back down,
Listened to him for a while,
Not out of interest,
Rather being polite,
He touched a nerve with his lack of sight,
I was moved by his plight.
For his heavenly tale,
I did not think much of it,
After all,
It was nothing more than a work of fiction,
And vivid imagination.


One day,
I walked in an unfamiliar place,
Yet I felt at home there,
It seemed more than familiar,
Though I had never been there before,
Do not think me wrong,
This place was all new to me,
I had never been there before,
Not even as a child.
The market place,
The old church,
Everything here looked eerily familiar,
My ultimate déjà vu.


On my way back home,
I was lost in thought,
A picture of utter confusion,
My reasoning had lost all punctuation
And I wished I could come to some realization.
The entire experience was quite surreal,
Pretty disturbing,
Somewhat unnerving,
But this feeling was unrelenting
Almost unforgiving,
It kept persisting.


I eventually fell asleep
Somewhere between unrelenting and unforgiving.
When I woke,
The blind man I had met in church came to mind,
I remembered him telling me of heaven,
It was then that I gained perspective,
He threw light on my confusion.


If I could walk in an unfamiliar place
Yet feel it familiar,
Who was I to be dismissive of him and his tale of heaven?
Probably in those sightless eyes of his,
He actually does see things
Those with sight are incapable of seeing,
Maybe in another realm,
I might be the blind one,
And him the sighted one.
When asleep and dreaming,
Do we not see things even with our eyes closed?
Never call the blind man blind,
For under the cloak of sightlessness,
Only heaven knows what he can actually see,
Probably heaven.
Sighted or sightless,
We’re all just might be capable of seeing,
It all depends on where we stand,
Only the blind call the blind man blind.