Blindness & Edits: massive post

A View of Blindness
I see clearly most of the time,
but other moments I look up
from the computer screen
or the book I’ve been musing
to see the people as faceless wanderers,
their features blurred together
as if time erased their expressions.

Smiles and frowns merge,
and if the eyes stare or wander,
or if tears bead up and roll down,
it’s all the same to me.
Surely blindness is a scary thing.

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So this poem I wrote the other day as I was reading a book, looked up, and realized that things were a little fuzzy. Glasses sort of run in the family, so I wouldn't be surprised if one day I need them, but anyway, that's what led to this poem.

Now what follows are several poems that my mom helped me go over. She gives really great criticism and helps me bring the best out of my poems, so I hope you enjoy the changes I've made. If not, tell me so and why. Enjoy:


My Nights
I take a walk outside to get away from your absence.
The air is almost cold, but I sit on the old bench,
watching the lights go down in the neighborhood.
It’s nights like these I realize that the silence
is only for lack of listening:

a low hum in the sky, crickets chirping, a dog crying,
and somewhere a crowd is laughing.
The sounds are muffled, like the footsteps of shadows.
I listen for you. A car passes in the distance, then another.
The clock chimes and you aren’t here.

The streetlamps uncover few at this hour:
a student and a drunk, windless trees and empty benches.
All are empty; all are stagnant; all are weary.
My eyes are watchful and my hands are open. And you?
The group I heard before is making their way home.

The moon peers over their building with its lonely eye.
We are old friends. This is not the first night like this:
sitting in a lonely chair, or walking, or bicycling,
pensive or confused. The nights are numberless like the stars,
as beautiful as they are black, and as sleepless as the sounds I hear.

They have the touch of a friend leaving me behind.
These memories lull me to sleep, while the wonder keeps me awake.
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this (I don’t want to),
this need to speak to myself of the night
when I wanted to tell you.

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A Still Small Voice
When I hear a voice in my dream
with clear words, I wake up to darkness
and forget what was told me, seconds before.

I cannot see in the black bedroom,
but I wait, hoping to discern the shadows.
Nothing moves, even beyond my small window.

I remember someone calling out to me,
so I slide open the glass pane and listen:
a faint breeze, a passing car, and tired footsteps.

Another night, broken and restless,
my eyes are heavy and the moment’s lost.
Yet I whisper, “Wake me again; until I understand.”

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The Portraits of Silence
Silence is my demon of images opening the window
to a collage of fears, dreams to be doubted.
One isn’t thinking of me; the friendship shows
its face a garden whose flowers haven’t sprouted.
One is waiting to call me on the phone,
but the minute hand uncoils the feelings
into piles of uncertainty; I am left alone,
nervously eying the spots on the ceiling.

Another cries unashamed into stronger arms,
and I wish I could cry like that, free to choose
the release of emotion, an innocent charm.
Or that I had the strength that someone could use
to call upon in times of loneliness or need;
these demons wouldn’t torment me then.
Angels are encounters, the planting of seeds
for music to sound, filling my world again.

------------


Stranded
Listening to the sluicing of conversation,
the lull and roar of the passing minutes,
I am suddenly aware in the silence that drowns me.
I look across the room to see the crowds,
where one laughs and all laugh, and sometimes a shout.
Elsewhere a small group of friends tell the story
how they met someone over the weekend,
how they ought to call him or her sometime, maybe.
A young couple holds hands and forgets
the sounds around them which like waves
wash incessantly upon their solitary island.

And even more are stranded alone on their islands,
calling out, though no one hears them in the wind.
They light fires, wreck ships, run into the dangerous ocean
and still no one sees them or plans a rescue.
What is lost in the confusion of the waves?
These people are lost in a forgotten sea.
My cliffs are eroding; my shore is slipping away.

--------------


Going Back Alone
I remember watching the woods as they sunk into darkness.
As a child I left the others behind and went back alone.

The night was silent, except for the snapping of twigs,
the rustling and crunching of leaves, the pounding of my heart.

It couldn’t have been the wind, crossing my path by chance,
or rushing at me like blackness, or glaring with yellow eyes.

I couldn’t walk, but ran myself weary all the way down
mumbling to myself what hides in the moonlight.

And yet there was nothing, no one. I couldn’t stop stumbling
down the sloped trail, barely keeping balance.

Was it the shadows, or the silence that pushed me?
I saw the gray cage of trees; I heard the feet as they scattered.

Sometimes, I feel as lost, as hopeless as my childhood,
running alone in the dark, listening to myself breathe.

I still recognize inside the fear of never getting out again,
of never seeing the lit windows, or hearing the laughter of family.