Peaches

by Reja-e-Busailah

The two peaches came from opposite orchards.

They waited to be picked up by some buyer or another;

it was late when the two men,

brothers in trade, arrived.

They examined the peaches and shook their heads:

 

“Who on earth would eat such peaches!”

exclaimed the one: “One peach with so much sugar,

but with hardly any juice!

While the other with so much juice,

but with hardly any sugar!”

 

“You nailed it on the head,” agreed the other,

“just what I have been meaning to talk to you about:

I have a son,

and you have a son,

right?

Your son is blind but smart,

my son is sighted but dumb!

Now is that fair, I ask you?

What would a dim-eyed person do with a brain?

Wouldn’t God have done better

if he had given the brain of your son

to my son who sees but is a dimwit?

At least there would then be one good peach

don’t you think so?”

 

Shocked, the other would-be buyer said,

“You must ask God that.”

 

The two peaches heard all that

and nodded as if to say,

“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.”

“I wouldn’t for the world,

sweet sister, covet your sugar!”

“Nor would I for the whole world,

my good sister, covet your juice!”

 

Reja-e-Busailah was born in Jerusalem and now lives in Indiana, U.S. He has been totally blind since infancy, from before the end of his first year. He has published poems in a variety of little magazines on different subjects. This poem and the next that Vision Through Words will post are from a collection of poems, Poems Out of Sight, which he hopes to publish in the near future. Reja-e also in the process of having a memoir about his childhood published within the next few months.

Blue Vibrations

by Crystal Howe

Blue is my favorite color,

Though I really can’t say why.

I’ve never seen the ocean,

The flowers or the sky,

The hue of sweetest berries,

Or my child’s sparkling eyes.

But blue’s my favorite color,

And maybe I know why:

The peace of its vibration,

The healing it provides,

The grace so all-embracing,

A deeper touch than sight.

O blue’s my favorite color,

A blessing of the Light!

 

Crystal Howe has been legally blind since birth and lost all light perception at age 12, after a difficult struggle with Glaucoma. She is an ordained minister with a Doctorate Degree in  Metaphysical Science. Crystal especially enjoys songwriting, poetry, weaving, and trying new coffee  flavors.

Think Autumn, Think Color

Two new poems by Nancy Scott.  Feel the color!

A BLIND WRITER COLORS

Sunday is brown

seeds of reading and TV, eating

too much and calling long distance.

 

Monday is white

space for lists and ledgers, guilts

and promises of the busy and brave.

 

Tuesday is black

ink and thinking

even if your computer talks.

 

Wednesday is orange

flame of waiting and impatience.

 

Thursday is red

accounting for cross-outs and surprise

or blue accounting for not understanding

 

Friday is green

pay-off and fruit

for all to see

 

Saturday is pink or purple or yellow

depending on whim or preference

 

 

AUTUMN AIR for Carole

Poets know fall sounds clearest.

We hear geese fly—

skeins of high, V-shaped leaving

even through closed windows.

Half-time bands reverb

off houses we’ve lived in for years,

defining solidity and reminding

that drums can be heard from a distance.

Leaves crunch and schoolchildren run,

late again

lured by night sounds and atmosphere.

 

I thought I alone

heard one autumn cricket sing

beyond my screen

until you wrote

your late-October soloist.

Do these solitary minstrels

favor poets’ yards

or is this chance or curse

heard by anyone listening

for muffled, crack-crystal winter?

 

Nancy Scott, Easton, PA, is a blind essayist and poet. Her over 600 bylines have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and newspapers, and as audio commentaries. An essayist and poet, she has published three chapbooks. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Contemporary Haibun Online, and Stone Voices.

What a Feeling!

by Andrea Kelton

The easel

Holds a painting

Featuring a free-form tree

Under an explosive yellow sun.

 

The artist

Brush in hand

Stands back

Admiring her masterpiece.

 

Satisfaction bubbles

Then

Glee gushes and rushes

Through her four-year-old body.

 

Andrea glows with wonder

At this treasure she’s created.

 

Emotions explode

As she discovers

That

Doing art

Creates bliss.

 

Andrea Kelton was diagnosed with uveitis at 24. Her diverse artistic life included photography and ceramics.  She taught pottery in her own Chicago storefront studio for 15 years.  Andrea attends a memoir writing class taught by author, Beth Finke.

The Place Where She Flew Away

by Sharon Tewksbury

When I left that dusty little town,

Where the tumbleweeds rolled, and the cactus grew,

I thought I’d set the world on fire,

With all the things I thought I knew!

 

I still remember that childhood sidewalk,

Leading to the shack I called home,

The lawn chairs sitting by the front door,

Where I sat when daddy was gone.

 

How many days did I sit in them and dream?

How many nights did I plan on the day?

when my restlessness would fuel my wings

And I would go far away.

 

I remember the parched West Texas ground,

I felt like I would never walk on it again,

I’d never taste the desert rain

Or hear the early morning wind.

 

But now, how different it is for me,

47 years have quickly passed,

Family are passing friends are leaving,

Did I really think temporary would last?

 

Time is going by, change writes destiny,

And The little shack is not there now,

But the weathered old fence stands defying time’s touch,

Though I don’t really know just how.

 

And that young girl still lives inside of me,

Her presence I feel each day,

Like an eagle she flew but she came back down,

To the place where she flew away.

 

Sharon Tewksbury, was born blind in the early fifties. She had cataracts before birth, was born prematurely and was in an incubator for eight weeks. Oxygen and bright lights made what vision she had leave at an expedient rate. This poem was written to share that although some sighted folks might think the blind have missed out, nothing could be further from the truth.

Got It Maid

by Jenny Jones

It’s probably been over two years since I decided to hire Myrna. It felt so frivolous to hire someone to clean my place but I figured it was important to me, and if I managed my money carefully, I could handle the expense. Besides I don’t have a car payment. My condo was so beautiful and new when I bought it, I didn’t want it to lose its shine. I know there are plenty of blind people who do a great job cleaning, but it just is too much for me when I work full time. I just don’t have the energy to stay on top of the dust. Sometimes when you have a disability it makes sense to spend extra money to make your life easier and more enjoyable. I know a guy who is blind and he likes to splurge on pedicures once a month.

I decided to try a house cleaner and hired Myrna. If it started to feel like a waste of money, I could just tell her I changed my mind. She cleaned the first time and I never looked back. I was delighted with how the place was transformed. My toes would sink into the plush carpet, which had felt thread bare the day before. It seemed like I was in a hotel. She even washes my windows. Every time she does her magic I am once again singing her praises. In books and articles I’ve read there is sometimes a story of an elderly person who dies and leaves a chunk of money to the maid. It never made any sense to me until I met Myrna! My quality of life has been enriched. Now with Racer, my guide dog in the house it can get pretty hairy. I bought a Dyson and when I first vacuumed after my dog had been with me a few weeks, I couldn’t believe the amount of furriness that was emptied from the vacuum. It was like a mini Racer was compacted inside the Dyson.

In between Myrna’s visits I venture to take out the vacuum. Racer watches me like he doesn’t trust me with the contraption. I expect him to run when he sees me with the noisy machine but instead he acts like he needs to supervise or protect me from myself. He stares as I push several levers and buttons and pull out all the extensions. Once I’m finished, I scratch my head about how to put it all back together. Accomplishment washes over me when the endeavor is over. Racer and I, feeling very relieved and worn out from our duties, trot to our respective spots in the living room and take a nap.

Jenny Jones lives with her guide dog Racer in Utah. She was born with cataracs. Retinal detachments took the rest of her sight when she was in her 20s. She loves to read but writing is new to Jenny. She finds it helpful and hopes to continue.  Jenny has a blog at: Jennysjourney464.blogspot.com

Your Light

by Stella De Genova

It was a night that went on for years

Skin cold and body hungry,

The blood in my heart

Drained down into my feet.

Lost on the side of the road

Trying to find the path

Defeated, I stopped looking

The chilled air snuffed out the last ember

Numbness became my comforter.

 

And then, out of nowhere

Or was it somewhere

You were walking toward me

Lantern in hand, growing brighter,

Your joyful eyes, soft as candlelight

Wakened my tired soul

Gone is the cold, endless night

In the caress of your sunlight

I taste the sweetness of morning

Narrows of the Bay

by Deon Lyons

Summer time raises its head over the salt water flats

Buoy bells ring out across the early August morn

A lone seagull cries out from atop the canning factory roof

The day’s first tide marches in through the narrows of the bay

 

A newspaper delivery boy pedals down through a vacant alley

One lonely car makes its way down to the docks

A church steeple stands tall, waiting for the sun

Scattered clouds skip high across morning’s first light

 

Marquee lights flicker, then  burn bright at the local corner diner

A man sitting on his lunch pail pulls on his fisherman’s boots

Salty air slowly drifts up through the center of town

One by one, the boat engines come alive

 

Conversations of current events circle the salted planks

Two dogs scamper and run along the downtown shore

A bread truck comes to a stop behind the local grocery

A fog horn sings out from the watchful harbor light

 

Two barking seals slide off of the breakwaters edge

A young man on the deck of a boat repairs a lobster trap

A store front awning opens wide and proudly waves hello

A little girl and her mother give daddy a good bye kiss

 

one by one, the boats leave their wake as they head out to work, ,

A squadron of seagulls escorts the plowing hulls out to sea

A growing quiet settles in upon the emptying docks

One more hot Summer’s day wraps itself around the small, down eastern town

Read Deon’s bio directly following his previous poem/post, “Contrast.”

For the Birds

by Nancy Scott

Part of my brain is always looking for an adventure to write about. I start paying attention when the post office clerk says “Welcome to Friday,” as her computer freezes up.

We have already put the Free Matter for the Blind letter tapes and cassette library books into the outer mailbox. It is 9:05 and the postal windows have just opened. There are four people in line in front of us and we are in line only so my driver can buy one stamp. (She could have gotten a stamp from my house earlier but she didn’t think to ask me.)

As I’m now paying more attention, I hear a bunch of chirping little birds. I ask Terry if she can see them outside. Once I point them out, Terry hears them too. She says she can see out, but no birds. “There is a tree but it has lots of leaves and I can’t see if anything’s happening.”

“They sound like baby chicks,” I comment as I listen and do not move forward in line. The three people in front of us are not talking about the birds.  Are they hearing the cheepy cacophony?

But finally the computer prints and the next person advances. And I’m thinking that the birds sound like they’re inside the building. The computer freezes again and someone named Jen is told to go into the back to do something and then we advance again.

After about ten bird-filled minutes, it’s our turn. And no one has asked about the birds! It’s all just cheapest or quickest shipping rates.

“I just need one stamp,” Terry says and I immediately can’t not ask, “What are those birds and where are they?”

The clerk laughs. “Oh, they’re baby chicks somebody mailed and we’re waiting for someone to pick them up. Just one more piece of this morning’s excitement.”

Oh how I want to ask how you could mail something so obviously alive, but there are rustling people in line behind us who are also not talking and probably not smiling about the birds.

Is a chicken farmer the mailer or the recipient, or both? Who else might want all those fluffy little babies that I only associated with my childhood Easters? And how many chicks? And how were they kept cool in August? What kind of boxes or cages would they use? And how could all those sighted people not ask about the noise?

Sigh! I’ll never know, but I suspect there are a few stories here.

Things that just won’t leave a writer’s head have to be written down. They cheep and chirp until you let them out to grow up to be food for thought or breeding stock or someone’s pet.

So here I am, to ponder and wish with my talking computer. It’s still Friday and I have time for an article draft or two. If there had just not been so many unhappy, rushed people behind me. And why didn’t I ask what kind of tree Terry saw outside? And how many people were there in line behind us and what were they holding and how were they dressed and ???

Nancy Scott, Easton, PA, is a blind essayist and poet.  Her over 600 bylines have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and newspapers, and as audio commentaries. An essayist and poet, she has published three chapbooks. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Contemporary Haibun Online, and Stone Voices.

Unknown

by Valerie Moreno

I am alone

does anybody care–

you, with babblings of

social obligations

or rushed participations in endeavors

to promote enlightenment?

 

You scurry away,

saying hello, but

too busy to ask me

how I am, who I might be.

 

You talk of love

that can move mountains,

yet you turn from me as

if I am invisible,

insignificant…

 

I am the elderly woman on a bench,

the stranger across the aisle at services,

the over-heated worker fixing a pot hole,

the child passed over when teams are chosen,

I could be you if circumstances change.

 

There are many of us,

not seeking condescending pity,

false emotion guised in abstract attitude,

something offered to save my needy soul.

 

I want what you take for granted–

acceptance, respect,

the light of valid love that

takes me as myself,

dignity intact,

ok

 

Valerie Moreno is 57 years old.  She had partial vision until 1999 when it disappeared literally overnight.  Valerie’s eye disease is ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity).  She is recently widowed, has a blind cat who she adores and loves to write.  She doesn’t have a computer, so she uses a phone voice-internet service called Net-By-Phone, which sends and receives email and browses the web.  Text emails and webpages are read in robotic speech and all texting is done via phone keypad.