To a Blind Mother...

In God's name, mam, don't mention

those days of seeing,

because I'm full of shame

in the shadow of your vision:

how full of colour, how ardent

those scenes you paint

where there are suns

I never dreamed existed.

My light's a mere boast

beside your shaded depths

and slant of rays captured

by the sweep of words.

If blindness is an island, apart,

then I hear stirrings at dusk

in the skirting breeze

of graves you etched

with fine floral patterns.

They remain in morning's glass,

two points like lighthouses.

If blindness is being isolated,

the cave I inhabit

can be blocked with foolish stone

and all your light cannot remove

its shame of the fumbling stick,

sad realisation no Lazarus

will rise up, re-born.

But on the tide-line I touch

and comb for your sense of perspective,

Feel in the tangle of seaweed

a moist canvas forming forgiveness.

Do you ???