groping as we grope
if heavens colors were like
music heard afar
Adapted from the poem, Spring, and the Blind Children by Alfred Noyes: from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1913 John Murray (Publishers) Ltd.
As much as I loved the line,
Or wondering, when they learned that leaves were green,
If colours were like music, heard afar?
Seems like the idea of music as colors has turned up before in this blog – and I believe there has been discussion of folks who do SEE color when listening to music.
Then there is the lines:
As though, for them, the Spring held nothing new;
And not one face was turned to look again.
And I think how to have never seen a sunset.
To have never looked back for that one last look.
I am reminded on the painting of the blind soldiers by John Singer Sargent.
Once again the line from The Color Purple comes to mind that “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.“
Spring , and the Blind Children
They left the primrose glistening in its dew.
With empty hands they drifted down the lane,
As though, for them, the Spring held nothing new;
And not one face was turned to look again.
Like tiny ghosts, along their woodland aisle,
They stole. They did not leap or dance or run.
Only, at times, without a word or smile,
Their small blind faces lifted to the sun;
Innocent faces, desolately bright,
Masks of dark thought that none could ever know;
But O, so small to hide it. In their night
What dreams of our strange world must come and go;
Groping, as we, too, grope for heavens unseen;
Guessing – at what those fabulous visions are;
Or wondering, when they learned that leaves were green,
If colours were like music, heard afar?
Were brooks like bird-song ? Was the setting sun
Like scent of roses, or like evening prayer ?
Were stars like chimes in heaven, when day was done;
Was midnight like their mothers’ warm soft hair?
And dawn? – a pitying face against their own,
A whispered word, an unknown angel’s kiss,
That stoops to each, in its own dark, alone;
But leaves them lonelier for that breath of bliss ?
Was it for earth’s transgressions that they paid –
Lambs of that God whose eyes with love grow dim –
Sharing His load on whom all wrongs are laid ?
But O, so small to bear it, even with Him!
God of blind children, through Thy dreadful light
They pass. We pass. Thy heavens are all so near.
We cannot grasp them in our earth-bound night.
But O, Thy grief! For Thou canst see and hear.
