Recorded this audio at a busy coffeehouse this morning.
I lost my right eye in 1982 a day before Easter when I was eight-years-old
it was Holy Saturday for everyone else;
for me it became
my holey-eyeterday
~ you see what happened was
there was this stick that was just minding its own business being a pretend wand in the hands of a pretend wizard named David
and I ran right
into it
pupil first
the last thing I
remember seeing
with my right eye
was David's face
as he was casting a spell
to kill an invisible orc
and then came
the indescribable pain
of my exploding lens
I passed out
when I woke up about five minutes later I was l sitting in my dad's chair that he spent two hours a night reading mystery novels in
I knew I must
have been in
bad shape if
they were letting
me sit in that chair
I could only open my
left eye
my right eye was sewn shut
with agony
my dad was talking to
me but I couldn't
quite hear what he was saying
the only thing I could focus on
was the sound of my mom
crying behind him
"Open you eye. Let me look,"
my dad said with hands on my face
I remember his fingers were covered in soil
he must have been gardening
when he got the news that I
had been struck by some dark magic
I tried to open my eye
~ I couldn't.
There was a monster of bark and wood under my eyelid devouring my sight one slow cruel chew at a time
with a bit of force
my dad helped me pry
my eye open for a fat second
and I watched with my
left eye how his face
turned grey
"shit..." he said
the light poured into my
right eye like lava
my right eye became fire
~ and I passed out again
the next thing I remember
I was laying in the back
of my parent's white Zephyr
as they raced me to the hospital
fresh smell of pesticide
my dad had, in fact,
been gardening
poor dad
one minute he was planting carrots at his garden downtown
the next he was watching his son
through his rearview mirror
convulse in the back of his car
thus is the life of a parent
from turnips to tragedy
in a heartbeat
My head in my moms lap
her hands on my forehead
shaking
my mom loved me
but she was never really
that physically affectionate
so the feel of her hands on my head was like a comet
rare
comforting
celestial
my nose started bleeding
and I passed out again
I came to a day later wearing a eye patch the size of Panama
it was Easter morning
but there would be no resurrection
for my sight
the tomb of my vision still
had a stone in front of it
I was devastated ~ destroyed -despondent
a man in a white coat came in with a brown clipboard
and told me even though
I had endured a
six hour surgery
that my right eye was
destroyed
"like The Death Star?"
I asked
"I don't know what that is" the doctor said
I hated him for that answer
how could somebody
of science and medicine
not know what The Death Star is?
It was in that
exact moment that
I learned to never
trust a person who
was big on clipboards
but little on pop culture
since that day
before Easter
~ when I was eight
~ when I lost my right eye
the only thing I can see are the
things that are to the left of me
~ and the things that are left of me
~and the people that have left me
~ and what little time I have left
I usually couldn’t see anything
right in front of me
now, 38 years later
I am left with grey hair
~and parents who left me for the great beyond
~ and a right eye that I am left with that aches every time it rains
~ and I was left with the memories
of that big stick
~and of David's face
~and that red chair with my dad
~and that car ride with my mom
~and that doctor
~and everything that came after
all of the good times
~and all of the bad
but here is the biggest
plot twist of it all… well, two plot twists really:
1) my “good” eye is beginning to fade
apparently putting all of the strain on a single eye to take in all of the wonder of the world isn’t really all that good for it
and (more concerning)
2) my memories are starting to drift
away
away
away
a....w...a...y from me
the details of the past are starting to swirl and fade and mist and morph
I'm losing my memories
which is terrifying for a guy who has spent most of his life looking backwards
for a man with one eye the present has always been my blind spot
~ and now so is the past
I haven't been able to see
what's right in front of me
~ and now I am having a
hard time seeing what's behind
but here nearly 40-years later
~ despite my fading vision
and my melting ice cube brain
I’m filled with hope
because there are other ways to see
the world then with just my eyes
and there are other ways to experience the past then just with my mind
turns out
the less I see
the more beauty
I’m starting to witness
&
the less I can remember about yesterday
the more I’m able to able to enjoy the now
this is why I think I became
a poet
I keep getting swaddled up
by every emotion I come into
contact with
with my fading vision
and loosening memory
all of my senses are now seemingly tied to my heart
it has my ears, eyes, tongue
fingers, nose and brain
my heart is my seeing eye dog
and despite my complaining
it keeps leading me into
wilderness of the human experience
everywhere I go
I’m surrounded by emotion
~ whether it’s mine or someone else’s
I’m like the kid in the movie
“Sixth Sense who sees ghosts
but instead of seeing phantoms
I am visited by feelings
they seep under my door
they walk through my walls
they climb down my chimney
it’s relentless
I may not be able to see
or remember anything very well
any more
but I can sure feel
emotions follow me
everywhere I go
a child laughing next to me
in a grocery store line
and suddenly I’m filled
up with the helium of joy
a grieving widow’s tears
always create a stream of my own
~ whether I know her or not
it’s everywhere
the rage
the passion
the joy
the love
the sadness
I can’t escape any
of the emotions of this
world
I feel it all
even if the feelings aren’t mine
sometimes especially they aren’t mine
I can taste it all on my lips
your emotions running
over my skin like bath water
I can sense the world’s emotions
rising up like a bouquet in my nostrils
filling up the dark space in my blindness
overwhelming my cobwebbed memories
I can barely see and I can hardly think
but holy hell
I can sure feel
and now I’ve become a content wanderer who writes a poem about every emotion that I encounter on the road of my life because they are all I have left
many years ago, I woke up in a hospital bed on Easter morning thinking
my sight was gone
~ then my heart opened her blazing eyes for the first time and said:
“Don’t worry ~ I got you.”
- john roedel
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