pouring through my eyelids like some lizard
fixed on a rock, the molten alchemy
sears my optic nerves--I awaken blind
to the rattle of the island wind
and the smell of camellia floating.
Well, I'm not really blind. I mean,
the core of everything I see is black,
surrounded, like the sun, by a
corona of flames and, in the periphery,
floating on the camellias, just
blurry distinctions, smeary sun and
the faint suggestions of apprehendible
form. Like St. Paul, stricken on the road
to Damascus, I have been blessed with
divine vision--I see sacred flames
everywhere! And while the loss of that old
visual field is mildly amusing, I
do not mourn it! All is holy! Emblazoned
in sacrament! Pentecostal! Serpents
and fiery symbols, black hole vortices
pulling everything to the godless abyss!
My eyes: stone ashes! What would I trade
for this gift? Would I swap it gladly for
all this stumbling in the world of built form?
Groveling in the gravel driveway, falling
in the stinking ditch of cattail muck
and algae scum? Of floating camellias
and brick? All those memories of wonder?
The Chagall chalked seascapes? The Northern Lights
bursting across the night like waves crashing
the firmament? Your naked body diving
like dolphins knifing up the coast? Your back,
the river of desire, and the camellias
floating there? No. I would not trade those
for these glowing stones, this searing beauty,
this pagan agony, for any of that.
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