Blind Men

A child passes by So full of joy Life A friend by his side Broad smiles smothered all over their faces, a veil over childhood ignorance Together they play, tumbling in the grass of the gardens of youth But before long, before every scent in this blooming garden is taken in, experienced A thunder storm invades the scene Shocking reality into their lives Ravaging their ignorance, their innocence Shattering their smiles And with great earthquakes, the ground beneath their feet shatters And the duo is separated into a quickly spreading mist It enshrouds them, whisking away their screams, hiding away their tears And with that sundering, friends of old are replaced by the mist, ever changing Sharp blades of green dull under the weight of the dew as the mist rides on the back of time Slowly, like the growth of wisdom, the mist withdraws With every inch of that once promising garden that is returned to the sun Another inch of realization is exposed to the world And where once gleamed blades of green and welcoming rainbows of soft scented dandelions resided Now sprouted weeds, thorns battling amongst one another for more room They sacrifice the shrubs and bushes of sweet tasting raspberries that once covered the broad smiling faces of two toddlers And from within the unrolling mist Strides a man in a suit With every stride he takes, away yield the weeds, and dwindle away Disintegrating, crumbling under his very air And from the foot tracks of his military boots Sprouts a structure breeding advances, great wonders to awe the world And what few roses remained in this scarred haven Are sacrificed, to make way for more boot marks, more wonders to awe the weeds Now comes another being, out of the retreating fog On his face is a contorted image A frown He drudged along a weed ridden path Tripping and tumbling over boot marks Each sprouting small, developing structures, non-nurtured offspring of unthinking parents His tattered clothes, assaulted by time and thorny undergrowth Hung on him like the shedding skin of a snake But unlike that of the slithering reptile, this old coat shall not leave its master Both wandered on, both blind to what was around them, what had changed Till one day, they walked towards one another And by some random act of choice, or the strict lines of fate, both blind men came full circle And without a glance, they strode past each other as they had glided or tumbled past their ever changing pathways As if the faces of their past where forgot © Samir Georges 2008