Parallel Universe
Sept 16 2009


I’m trying to explain colour
to a blind man.
So I ask
what is the essence of blue?
Where is the synapse
that lights-up on red?
How does the vibration
of electro-magnetic waves
affect us as deeply as music
— a blue funk, a purple haze
a jaundiced expression,
the snarling black dog
of depression?

The optic nerve
fires-up the brain,
and colour occurs.
So, is that where colour resides
from the first?
Or is the brain a blank slate,
waiting for the eyes to open
and open-up the world?

He was 2, when it occurred
the accident,
and vaguely remembers looking-out
at the green beginnings of his world.
He doesn’t miss it, he says,
just curious.
“I can’t miss
what I’ve never really known.
And sound is rich enough
touch intense,
especially when I focus;
with nothing but deep dense blackness
to distract me.”

Like the vast orders of magnitude
I can’t see past.
Like the surface of things
I cannot penetrate.
Like the future
that may, or may not, happen.
And like the extra dimensions
only physicists understand,
I, too, am colour-blind —
living the conceit that I’ve mastered
a material world
my eyes can never capture;
my mind
never truly grasp.