The Sight

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined. Isaiah 9:2

And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, ‘Do you see anything?’ And he looked up and said, ‘I see men, but they look like trees, walking.’ Mark 8:23-24

Close the distance, span the chasm

Between the mawkish and majestic

Inhabiting a hunger, bilious dyspeptic,

I am gaunt of spirit, vision phantasm.

Starved for the sputum that feeds a famished eye

Limber and lithe the hypostatic reach, render me

Blinking now, squinty epiphany;

Gleaming but gimpy, the dawn and dusk vie.

Bemused by the probing: Do you see anything?

The landsmen seem as much grove as grave.

Sepias of shade and shadow in the foregrounds,

Elbows and boughs both leaf at odd angles.

Peculiar people we are, ambient by dint of glint

I see darkness retreating, slowly, since Light its canopy rent.