If I Were Blind

If I were blind
I would read your mind
like a book of Braille or a
seismograph measuring earthquakes.
Line after line
your thoughts would shoot up
like the birth of a volcanic mountain range.
Your words would flow out
and pool into molten paragraphs in my palm,
pages would erupt into chapters and
chapters would rise on a cloud of steam
to condense behind my eyelids.
The tears that spilled out
would make you believe
I could read
every vowel and consonant
on your shifting tectonic plates.
I would read between your lines.
I would never mistake you
for a New York Times bestseller,
you would never be made into
a 3 part TV mini series and
Oprah’s book club
would not claim you
at 2:00pm on a
Tuesday afternoon.

If I were blind
I would run my hands
over your topographical surface
like the warm Equatorial air
that rises over the Andes.
My heat and your cool
would create convection currents
that would upset the delicate balance
of life on land and sea.
Small learned fishes
would be thrown
out of their schools
and into the nets of fishermen
balanced precariously
in slender wooden boats
shaped like pea-pods.
For a brief moment,
we would threaten climate change.
But this imbalance of nature
would be corrected
when those pea-pod boats
overturned
and tossed the fishers
into the foam to drown.
Their bodies would settle
on the ocean floor,
to feed algae
and coral and schools of fish,
intent on learning
from life, not a book.

If I were blind
I would finger-paint
a symphony of
colour and light
upon your skin,
that would compel
Monet and Renoir to
rise up from their graves
to study your face.
The Impressionists
and the Post-Impressionists
would argue whether art
illuminates consciousness
or unconsciousness,
while some
American businessman
tried to package and sell
the mural on your back
in a 6×8 paint-by-number kit.
Cubists would
redesign your torso
by adding a limb or an eye,.
while Van Gogh
bathed your shoulder blades
in a Paris-yellow light.
Primitive blues and greens
would wind down your spine,
and encircle your waist
in a tryst
of such haunting beauty
Gauguin would
lose his melancholy.

If I were blind
I would knead the
pressure points on your scalp;
your body would relax
and your mind would drift
back to a time
before you were born,
when you were nothing
but rich peat-filled soil.
My fingers would press
small, tidy holes in your dirt
a few inches apart,
one seed nestled in each.
Your earthy smell would
beckon lady bugs to resettle
in your brow, and earthworms would multiply.
Rocks would be moved
to make room for new roots,
and caterpillars
would be encouraged
to take up residence elsewhere.
Clover would share its luck.
When the beginnings of spring
announced themselves
in a layer of ferns
on your head,
I would run my fingers
through your
verdant hair from scalp to tip.
The sweat from my hands
would drip down
to intoxicate innocent maidenhair.
I would not use any roundup.
Your head would be an organic
Garden of Eden
and we’d share it’s bounty
with everybody but Monsanto.

If I were blind
I would read
and I’d paint
and I’d garden or fish,
and when I tired,
I would take the time
to write it all down in poetry
that would be translated
into a thousand languages,
but I’d tell it to you
in the language of touch.
My fingers would convince
your lips and your elbows
and your knees
that I had traveled the world
and you’d gone there with me too.
If I were blind
I would travel you.