New Year Wishes

by Stella De Genova

Another year is upon us. We all have hopes and dreams for the upcoming year: love, peace, good health, prosperity, maybe a small miracle or two.  One thing I’ve learned in life is that no matter what we hope or plan for, be prepared to improvise and go with the changes!

Vision Through Words has been posting poetry and essays written by visually impaired and blind writers since 2012. We have been lucky to have writers from all walks of life share their feelings and experiences in the blind community of the world.  As it turns out, we are all more alike than different.  We’ve read pieces that have made us laugh and made us cry and always something we could relate with.  As with all things, nothing is forever – things end and new things begin.  With that in mind, Vision Through Words will not be posting new submissions.  The site will be online so you can still enjoy archived writings and leave comments until spring.

I would like to personally thank each and every writer and reader that has visited this blog site and made it possible to continue as long as it has. Thank you, thank you, thank you!  I wish you a Happy & Healthy New Year full of love & peace.  And never stop reading, writing and being creative in whatever way you love best.

My wishes for happiness and peace to you,

Stella & Vision Through Words

Checkbooks Roasting

by Nancy Scott (sing to “The Christmas Song” melody)

Checkbooks roasting on an open fire.

Credit going up in flame.

Balance minimums are down to the wire.

Collection people know your name.

 

QVC and HSN are much too willing to

help you spend more than you make

and they’ll ship all your goodies to you

so everyone’s in on the take.

 

They know that you can’t help but buy

the clothes and jewelry and food and not ask why.

Appliances and lock and locks

you just can’t wait until you receive your next box.

 

And so I’m offering this simple tale

to warn you not to be in debt.

Make gifts or just buy them when they are on sale.

Happy giving. You bet.

 

Nancy Scott, Easton, PA, is a blind essayist and poet. Her over 600 bylines have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and newspapers, and as audio commentaries. An essayist and poet, she has published three chapbooks. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Contemporary Haibun Online, and Stone Voices.

Unrequited

by Valerie Moreno

I stand alone

shivering in chilly,

condescending winds of

unacceptance.

 

You are “too busy”

to give me a chance,

look at me as a

person instead of a

symbol of blindness.

 

You won’t meet me

half-way, I feel it

like a hard slap against my cheek.

 

Rejection stings for a time,

reminding me to appreciate my self…

Again, I gather my strength,

assess my ability,

believing someone wiser will

accept who I am.

But know everything lost will be recovered

when you drift in to the arms

of the undiscovered

Valerie Moreno is 59 and a published writer. She writes poetry, memoir, fiction and articles. Her eye disease is ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity. Some favorite hobbies include reading, raised line drawing, music and singing.

The Chain

by Reja-e-Busailah

My Seeing Eye dog senses we are bent

on a long journey, long enough to keep us for a full day

chained to one seat on one plane.

 

She goes out of her mind with zeal,

like a child in the act of opening

the long-awaited present,

dream being realized,

and before I know it,

before we set out,

she has thrown all temperance to the dogs

and emptied to the drains

a bowl of water bubbling to the brim:

She knows

as though trafficking with powers

far above and beyond my ken;

and that’s the full extent of her innocence

and that’s the full limit of her association.

 

Then in despair I tear my hair,

or what is left of it,

less over what has passed

than over what is to come:

 

My vision,

my guide through the world’s pitfalls and snares

the only guardian to whose care

I would commit my whole being,

she who empowers me to make myself at home

in the mightiest of cities

most awe-inspiring,

she who enables me to relish

the Big Apple to the fullest,

frees me of fear when at its beaches,

its parks, its avenues, and squares,

at its stations grand, small, and modest,

in office, store, restaurant, and classroom,

she who fills me with fearlessness

when down deep in its big belly,

among the terrible snakes of B.M.T.s and I.R.T.s lying still or running,

not far from the treacherous serpent

disguised as the Third Rail.

She knows all,

and yet this angel,

this guardian angel,

can see no farther after all

 

than those who designed the feathered arrow

and took time off to rest,

and watched a dream the fall of albatross,

or than those who engender,

just to gaze spellbound,

that device, wondrous and beastly,

which travels far and fast

to bust the kidneys and bladders of continence.

 

Both she and they are cause-conscious,

both consequence-blind

in their calculations and traffickings

except when the shrewd inventors

are in the custody of cup or bottle:

 

Then in all fairness they do hold an edge,

a decisive edge over her,

for they can tell, she can’t I think,

the compelling if serpentine link

between first blush and crucial kiss,

between, pardon the impropriety, guzzle and piss—

the kind of chain least on a Seeing Eye’s mind.

Reja-e Busailah was born in Jerusalem and now lives in Indiana, U.S. He has been totally blind since infancy, from before the end of his first year. He has published poems in a variety of little magazines on different subjects. This poem is from a collection of poems, Poems Out of Sight, which he hopes to publish in the near future. Reja-e also in the process of having a memoir about his childhood published within the next few months.

Peaches

by Reja-e-Busailah

The two peaches came from opposite orchards.

They waited to be picked up by some buyer or another;

it was late when the two men,

brothers in trade, arrived.

They examined the peaches and shook their heads:

 

“Who on earth would eat such peaches!”

exclaimed the one: “One peach with so much sugar,

but with hardly any juice!

While the other with so much juice,

but with hardly any sugar!”

 

“You nailed it on the head,” agreed the other,

“just what I have been meaning to talk to you about:

I have a son,

and you have a son,

right?

Your son is blind but smart,

my son is sighted but dumb!

Now is that fair, I ask you?

What would a dim-eyed person do with a brain?

Wouldn’t God have done better

if he had given the brain of your son

to my son who sees but is a dimwit?

At least there would then be one good peach

don’t you think so?”

 

Shocked, the other would-be buyer said,

“You must ask God that.”

 

The two peaches heard all that

and nodded as if to say,

“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.”

“I wouldn’t for the world,

sweet sister, covet your sugar!”

“Nor would I for the whole world,

my good sister, covet your juice!”

 

Reja-e-Busailah was born in Jerusalem and now lives in Indiana, U.S. He has been totally blind since infancy, from before the end of his first year. He has published poems in a variety of little magazines on different subjects. This poem and the next that Vision Through Words will post are from a collection of poems, Poems Out of Sight, which he hopes to publish in the near future. Reja-e also in the process of having a memoir about his childhood published within the next few months.

Blue Vibrations

by Crystal Howe

Blue is my favorite color,

Though I really can’t say why.

I’ve never seen the ocean,

The flowers or the sky,

The hue of sweetest berries,

Or my child’s sparkling eyes.

But blue’s my favorite color,

And maybe I know why:

The peace of its vibration,

The healing it provides,

The grace so all-embracing,

A deeper touch than sight.

O blue’s my favorite color,

A blessing of the Light!

 

Crystal Howe has been legally blind since birth and lost all light perception at age 12, after a difficult struggle with Glaucoma. She is an ordained minister with a Doctorate Degree in  Metaphysical Science. Crystal especially enjoys songwriting, poetry, weaving, and trying new coffee  flavors.

Think Autumn, Think Color

Two new poems by Nancy Scott.  Feel the color!

A BLIND WRITER COLORS

Sunday is brown

seeds of reading and TV, eating

too much and calling long distance.

 

Monday is white

space for lists and ledgers, guilts

and promises of the busy and brave.

 

Tuesday is black

ink and thinking

even if your computer talks.

 

Wednesday is orange

flame of waiting and impatience.

 

Thursday is red

accounting for cross-outs and surprise

or blue accounting for not understanding

 

Friday is green

pay-off and fruit

for all to see

 

Saturday is pink or purple or yellow

depending on whim or preference

 

 

AUTUMN AIR for Carole

Poets know fall sounds clearest.

We hear geese fly—

skeins of high, V-shaped leaving

even through closed windows.

Half-time bands reverb

off houses we’ve lived in for years,

defining solidity and reminding

that drums can be heard from a distance.

Leaves crunch and schoolchildren run,

late again

lured by night sounds and atmosphere.

 

I thought I alone

heard one autumn cricket sing

beyond my screen

until you wrote

your late-October soloist.

Do these solitary minstrels

favor poets’ yards

or is this chance or curse

heard by anyone listening

for muffled, crack-crystal winter?

 

Nancy Scott, Easton, PA, is a blind essayist and poet. Her over 600 bylines have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and newspapers, and as audio commentaries. An essayist and poet, she has published three chapbooks. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Contemporary Haibun Online, and Stone Voices.

Unrequited

by Valerie Moreno

I stand alone

shivering in chilly,

condescending winds of

unacceptance.

 

You are “too busy”

to give me a chance,

look at me as a

person instead of a

symbol of blindness.

 

You won’t meet me

half-way, I feel it

like a hard slap against my cheek.

Rejection stings for a time,

reminding me to appreciate my self…

 

Again, I gather my strength,

assess my ability,

believing someone wiser will

 accept who I am.

 

Valerie Moreno is 59 and a published writer. She writes poetry, memoir, fiction and articles. Her eye disease is ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity. Some favorite hobbies include reading, raised line drawing, music and singing.

What a Feeling!

by Andrea Kelton

The easel

Holds a painting

Featuring a free-form tree

Under an explosive yellow sun.

 

The artist

Brush in hand

Stands back

Admiring her masterpiece.

 

Satisfaction bubbles

Then

Glee gushes and rushes

Through her four-year-old body.

 

Andrea glows with wonder

At this treasure she’s created.

 

Emotions explode

As she discovers

That

Doing art

Creates bliss.

 

Andrea Kelton was diagnosed with uveitis at 24. Her diverse artistic life included photography and ceramics.  She taught pottery in her own Chicago storefront studio for 15 years.  Andrea attends a memoir writing class taught by author, Beth Finke.

The Place Where She Flew Away

by Sharon Tewksbury

When I left that dusty little town,

Where the tumbleweeds rolled, and the cactus grew,

I thought I’d set the world on fire,

With all the things I thought I knew!

 

I still remember that childhood sidewalk,

Leading to the shack I called home,

The lawn chairs sitting by the front door,

Where I sat when daddy was gone.

 

How many days did I sit in them and dream?

How many nights did I plan on the day?

when my restlessness would fuel my wings

And I would go far away.

 

I remember the parched West Texas ground,

I felt like I would never walk on it again,

I’d never taste the desert rain

Or hear the early morning wind.

 

But now, how different it is for me,

47 years have quickly passed,

Family are passing friends are leaving,

Did I really think temporary would last?

 

Time is going by, change writes destiny,

And The little shack is not there now,

But the weathered old fence stands defying time’s touch,

Though I don’t really know just how.

 

And that young girl still lives inside of me,

Her presence I feel each day,

Like an eagle she flew but she came back down,

To the place where she flew away.

 

Sharon Tewksbury, was born blind in the early fifties. She had cataracts before birth, was born prematurely and was in an incubator for eight weeks. Oxygen and bright lights made what vision she had leave at an expedient rate. This poem was written to share that although some sighted folks might think the blind have missed out, nothing could be further from the truth.