Blind Boy

A poem dealing with life after the loss of a loved one.

The blind boy’s hands shake in the abysmal wake,

A crippling expanse of time and space

Separating him from the light.

His palms slip their reptilian tongues through the air,

Searching for what was lost and isn’t there.

 

The dark presides.

It has stolen his prize,

has perverted a once full and happy life.

The shadow tides rose to engulf his world,

Villainous fiends to feed on his virtuous existence.

He now floats adrift in an ocean of emptiness,

In the bath tub of an unruly and uncaring tyrant,

A toddler thrashing about in a tumultuous fit.

 

Day after day, the confusion resonates,

And he struggles with the steps he takes,

Desperate to the see the sunshine he can taste.

 

During times when reality consumes,

A terrifying tightness  in his chest threatens,

Dragging  him into depression’s drooling maw.

 

Don’t be fooled by his silence,

A man with nothing to lose

Does little before the plunge.

 

As he listens to the soft, intuitive plucking of his heart strings,

He begins to find weapons to wage the battle within his mind.

The Lord provides for those willing to bear arms against the dark.

 

The blind boy will rally and rebel,

He will drag his demons to hell,

And he will restore his hopes.

 

For his memories of sight

Will live on in his heart.

 

The hearth on a Christmas Eve,

Fire stoked high with burning eaves,

Adjacent to the magic of a bejeweled conifer tree,

All these images and  more will live eternally

In the intricate crevices of his memories.