I knew a man,
almost just like you and me.
He was just like you and me;
he sat in chairs, walked around,
he never worked out. He acted old and tall.
And the children loved him, I think.
I think they looked up to him
all the time; and whenever he was
around children he would say
"Well, look at that!" and that
is what he said all the time.
And I would always wonder
what if one day that old man went blind,
then he wouldn't say "Well, look at that!"
Instead he would say "Well, would you just smell that"
or "Well, would you just feel that," or something like that.
But maybe he would just say, "Well, that's nice" and sigh,
sigh as he often did before, only more.
But maybe, besides that, he would cry, "Well, would you just look at that!"
All the same, all the same, like nothing had changed.
I didn't know him that well. But one day that man went blind;

I heard it in passing; that was all I heard; I wanted to hear more.
But I was prodded on, I had some affairs… And am I here now?
where I left off about the old man? a man who went blind, or
something or other? But to think that the entire world could function
like memory… just like I did just now. We
would be obscured, left in the dark, maybe destroyed over and over before we were brought into the light again -- no, to some totally new light.
Is that what this is? Just being churned about
in darkness, tumbling over and over,
before we could, at last, see something?