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.

Seeing Red

by Stella De Genova

Imagine a world of blurred and sometimes abstract images. Imagine looking up and seeing a blue sky and beneath it, gray buildings and foliage and silhouettes of people.  There is subtlety of color but is it green or brown or is it purple or blue?  And when the light dims – well, let’s just say all bets are off.  I’m never sure enough of colors anymore to be able to pick and buy my own clothing in a store.

And then something catches my eye: a red apple, a red cayenne pepper, a red flower, a red convertible. It’s almost like an artistic twist in a Benini film.  What a stroke of luck for me!  No, not the part that I have RP (retinitis pigmentosa) and this is what I see daily but the fact that red has always been a favorite color of mine and now, along with the bright blue sky on a sunny day, this is the color that consistently pops out for me.

It’s weird the way life works. We can all think about what we’ve lost in life but let’s be honest, a person can only dwell on loss for so long.  Could be we’re in a better place when we move past the loss and cherish what we do have.  Trust me, there’s someone out there who has less than you or me.

Personally, I choose to see red today and I have no complaints about that!

Night Colors

by Valerie Moreno

My night colors shine in dazzling array,  

gleaming sun in a brilliant sky  

clouds rich and white as vanilla frosting  

thick green my feet sink in  

water bubbling like chrystal ice

 

Yes, I see these colors  

vivid with unbridled clarity  

when sleep turns my brain-camera  

to high definition.

 

I see your face

close up, your eyes  

meeting mine in sweet truth.

 

I feel your hug,  

your love around me,  

fighting the alarm  

pulling me in to wakefulness.

 

Now, it’s all a memory-  

and an anxious wait for night  

when blindness goes away  

and I will see again

 

Valerie Moreno is 59 and a published writer. She writes poetry, memoir, fiction and articles. Her eye disease is ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity. Some favorite hobbies include reading, raised line drawing, music and singing.

Contrast

by Deon Lyons

Each day I slowly walk past the easel.

Each day, I swipe at it with my paint brush.

Each day, I add one more stroke to the emerging canvas.

The mood of the day fills the brush with original color.

The journey of the day guides my hand towards the painting.

The experience of the day carefully pinpoints the stroke.

How many paintings have I seen?

How many canvases have I colored?

How many stories have I told?

The contrast is my opinion.

The emotions are the palette.

The sequence is my life.

The painting is me.

Deon Lyons lives with his wife in their home of 30 years in Maine, U.S. Here’s his story:

I was born in 1960 with bi-lateral retinal cancer and lost my left eye at five months old. With the help of some of the earliest radiation processes here in the United States, I was able to beat cancer and had good vision in my right eye until 2010, when I succumbed to a series of strokes, where the blood flow was cut off to the right retina, leaving me blind.

A lot has happened to me since then. My life has seen changes that I have had to work through and learn to live with. I am very fortunate to have had vision for fifty years, and am blessed to still be roaming this big blue marble we call home.

I have many interests, such as music, movies, gardening, DIY, sports, love of family and digital technology, specifically, assistive technology.

I’m happy to find my pillow each night, and feel very fortunate to have so many blessings in my life.

Losing my vision has reintroduced me to one of my favorite passions, writing. These past five years have shown me that one of the reasons I lost my sight was so that I could learn how to see, and many, many times, I have gained visions through the words that I type on the screen. Within each obstacle that we encounter, there always lies an opportunity. With hard work and inspirational cues, the possibilities are endless.

Colors

by Mani G. Iyer

On drives, long and lazy

as is wont of her

she reveals in color,

the moving panorama.

 

In autumn, her palette flows

with shimmering yellows,

fiery reds, mesmerizing maroons,

reluctant greens and soothing oranges.

 

And come spring and summer

it is the spectrum of vibrant greens

with the rare rainbow resplendent

enough to enthrall for many a moment.

 

On this bright wintry day

I brace myself for the pale grey,

the near nakedness, a lusty yellow

brazenly stripping stubborn whites.

 

Instead, she said—

in a metallic red, two braided blacks

billowing blues from slender whites

delicately dangling out of pastel pinks.

 

Mani G. Iyer was born and raised in Bombay, India and has lived in the United States since 1985.  He is deaf-blind due to Usher Syndrome.  He became deaf by the age of 4, night-blind by the age of 12, and now has very little usable vision.  Writing has always been a passion for Mani and has done a writing fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center.  He has also just started a writing group called “The Good Word.”

Colors

by Fred Nikkl

I was riding the elevator down from the Second Sense blind services organization where I volunteer and happened to hear two people discussing the new colors there office was being painted.  Now it has been over fifty years since I have been able to see colors so their interest in the color scheme of their office didn’t hold much interest for me.  Later, it occurred to me that not being interested in color could be considered to be a little strange.  We are surrounded by color wherever we go.  Everyone has an opinion about the colors around them.  Just because I can’t see the colors around me shouldn’t mean they are not of interest to me.  The problem for me is that my memories of color have faded over the years since I have been blind.  What is blue?  For that matter, what do all the colors look like?  My memory of green, for example, conjures up particular memories.  I picture the dress greens I wore in the army.  Of course, that is only one shade of green.  How many others are there?  How can I compare one shade to another when considering the color of my shirt or anything else for that matter?  My color identifier gives a name to everything I try it on but that doesn’t tell me enough about the particular shade the color is. Some blind people only wear certain colors just to be on the safe side but that seems kind of boring to me.  I have been lucky to always have someone to take shopping with me so I have some idea of the colors I am buying.  The problem with that is that everyone has a different idea of how different colors go together.  One person says I look good in a certain shade of blue and the next person says something different.  Maybe there isn’t a definitive answer to the color question.  

I think I will choose a particular shade of blue and use it as a basic color for my color choices. Being a man, this will be a lot easier than if I were a woman!

Fred Nikkl is 69 years old and has fun writing.  e lost his sight when he was a young adult but has never let that stop him from being a good dad, grandfather, friend, advocate for the blind and generally nice guy.  Blindness has also never stopped his love for adventure, including dabbling in writing.  His previously posted story on Vision Through Words called Hope will be appearing on the Magnets and Ladders website for writers with disabilities.

If I Could See For Just One Day

by Jeff Flodin

Here’s what I would do if I could see again. For one glorious summer day, I’d be a bleacher bum. And play Frisbee at Oak Street Beach.  And get impressed by Impressionists hanging around the Art Institute.  I might paint my bedroom purple.  And ride a sleek red bicycle.  And watch my big, black dog romp in the cool blue surf.

I’d venture into the unfamiliar: down to scuba dive, up in a glider.  I’d find peace in the familiar:  gaze upon the face of my beloved, catch the light in her laughing eyes and see the strength I hear in her voice. 

I like to think that I’d be grateful for one day of vision.  I don’t want to resent it as a miserly expression of someone’s sense of fairness.  I’d prefer to remain gracious.

I’d set aside time to spy on myself. Watch how I do things and figure out how to do things better.  I’ve never seen me as a blind person.  I’m really curious what it looks like to be me, how I put my problem-solving skills to practice. 

If I saw my blind self from a sighted perspective, how would I look?  Pathetic?  Persistent?  I live in a sighted world.  I’d like to know how other people see me.  Maybe I’d understand both sides better.

 I want to think that wishing is not a waste of time, that it does not mean that I am doing a lousy job of accepting life as it is, that I seek only to escape.  I refute the suggestion that to wish for something not likely to occur will only make me sad or bitter or both. 

And when the clock strikes midnight, let me be grateful for what I have.  Let me not resent those who have what I lack.  Let me strive to make better that which I possess.  Let me find peace and bring that peace to others.

 

Jeff Flodin’s bi-weekly blog, “Jalapenos in the Oatmeal: Digesting Vision Loss,” is posted at The Guild for the Blind’s website (www.guildfortheblind.org, where this essay first appeared.