Seeing Is Believing

            A blinded soul

is a stubborn thing.

It must be ground and battered,

shocked, in the hope that one day

it will remember how to see.

A soul can be so stubborn, it keeps its eyelids

tightly shut, until it must be thrown

into the furnace of stars, and exhaled

into the loneliness of space.

A soul can be so blind that it must be exiled

time and again, into bodies that are afflicted

with warts, boils and tumors.

Wake up, wake up!

Its eyes stubbornly clamped,

a soul will inherit careless mothers and cruel fathers,

like cold water in the face,

that it may through pure reflex

open its eyes, and see on the horizon

a glimpse of the home

from which all souls come,

to which they will, some day, return.

A stubborn thing is a blinded soul.

It has no memory of its memory.

It does not know

of the domain of seeing souls

who grieve for their lost brethren.

Won't you see, won't you remember?

they cry.  To the blind

it is a faint and distant sound

drowned by the thunder

of clenched and blaming hearts.

Here it is, here it is!

Just open your eyes, just remember.

The glue that holds shut

the eyelids of your sightless soul

can be dissolved

by the tears of your long, sad sleep.