The Blind Shoemaker's House

 
How my heart longs for that garden
budding symbol of repair
where the roots the old man planted
still his dreams and wishes bear
 
an extra plot besides his neighbors,
paths of brick still shapely laid
statue’s blunt remaining foot
tell the dream of eyes that fade
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
a garden could be here again
I long to clear these paths and roots
to find and blend the ancient plantings
pruned with added springing shoots
 
I long to tear the broken shed down
not crudely with some business might
but giving each grain reverence
in the slant of golden sunlight

 on the shelves of his old work shed
find the savings of his craft
the tools and products age makes curious
let knowing hands preserve at last
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
live inside his house of darkness
walls and ceilings lined with soot
slowly, carefully, clean the rubbish
this blind man kept near hand and foot
 
in the image of his darkness
change the world from dark to light
with the vision I am given
return the rooms to pleasing sight
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
Send remains to rest, old man,
not without sympathy, thought and care
though a stranger to your days,
restoring this – a final prayer
 
perhaps the prayer you asked for
who without family gave your land
choosing Church to redistribute
wealth with loving, generous hand
 
and while the outer world fell on you,
your savings brought to disrepair,
only inner hope as light,
beyond earth’s hope, could give life there
 
in your image of aloneness
in your darkness of despair
when sight of human love had left you
you chose a symbol of repair
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
impersonal, an institution,
still it serves to bring a share
of the good you wished to others
their thanks, remote, will thank you fair
 
and through this symbol, built for goodness
your life has measure, even least,
from thoughts of others, far or dim
whose lives your leaving finally blessed
 
So, when church is paid its penny,
I with hands would heal these wounds
I who wish to plunge my life
into this house and its dark rooms

                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
Why seek the damaged and outworn
and grasp what others would ignore,
of men, the sick, enslaved, unborn,
and not the wholesome and the sure?
 
Is my universe one of blindness
where others live in daily light,
am I also reaching outwards
against an unseen inner blight,
 
touching in others the damaged part
which I would fix in my own heart?
And can these efforts placed elsewhere
through others, be my own repair?
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
Old man, the desolated world
you lived, alone and blind and poor,
if my strength I say can conquer
not just for you, who passed life’s door,
 
but for some part of me that’s broken
and seeks on earth salvation
some need that seeks for healing
in worldly restoration
 
to bring to life, no, not your image
not what you were or wished to be
but all the best of all your striving
born in my possibility
 
                   ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
somehow, from all these hopes you started
in my hands this house, my prayer,
would be, more than in some others’ hands,
for you, a symbol of repair
 
                                                            (1980s and 90s)