Toby
Happy New Year!
This is not the typical style of work I share here, but I’ve been sitting on this whimsical little poem for quite a while now, and I figure now is as good a time as any to share it. May this be a light-hearted reminder to open our eyes (in all senses of the phrase) to the beauty of those people and places around us in the coming year…
***
The Men Who Saw
Once, the world was full of men who looked
with eyes as big as pans to cook—
Jaws hanging low, right down to the floor,
they looked and looked, ’til they could look no more.
The women and girls, and little boys too,
Could not understand all this looking to do—
And they shouted and pleaded to those big staring eyes
To just once sink deeper, and see them inside.
But the men who looked did not know what they meant;
Their days in looking and staring they spent…
Until one day a blind man appeared in their midst
And taught the men the lesson they’d missed.
At the first the men could not see why
This blind one’s attention brought so many smiles—
The women and children explained it all:
Though he could not look, he saw straight to their souls!
The men who looked hemmed and pondered;
They scratched their heads and thought and wondered.
At last one of their lot closed his eyes in amazement,
And refused to open them, despite much persuasion.
“I’ve got it, my friends!” He shouted with glee.
“The blind one’s vision is fine; the fault lies with me.
Though we look and we stare every day of our lives,
The world that we know is a palace of lies!”
And so the men who looked became the men with eyes closed,
and they finally knew what it meant to see souls.
Nevermore would they suffer such empty stares,
when the truth which they sought—beyond closed eyes was there.
***