THE QUADRIPLEGIC

1.

As he traversed the threshold he perceived,
resisting being blinded by fear’s cold grip,
he was not the same person who had leaved,
after having slept and waken up dreamingly.

Sure that the bus from downtown had dropped him
at the same stop he’d been caught that same morning,
and, walking down the street, he was let in
a house whose dog barked in familiar tones.

He hushed to himself, because he could not
talk of all the things that no longer talked:
for there were no more flower, jug or couch

anywhere around. Though there was plain light,
the single thing that he still could make out
was the broad soaring emptiness of daylight.


2.

he moves about himself and sees
the other surface of things,
the one mirrors do not disclose,
the one we can’t see with eyes wide open

he goes past them listening to their chatter,
he still doesn’t know he is there no longer,
or that he simply is where they are already,
where they were quietly waiting on his comeback

he tries and realises he cannot recall his name,
smiling, he thinks he probably will not miss it,
maybe the name gave away but he persisted
picking his path into a nameless domain

there he watches again his joys and pains
but either with equal serenity, or then with eyes
stirred with both oblivion and understanding:
so walks the man safe from life again

vainly the roads vary from one to the other,
vainly the roads vary from one to the next day,
so walks the man in his death,
not one dead man in particular

but the one who finally made it to be no one,
and understands he is the same as each and every man,
because every dead man is the same man,
and each way he treads, his one single way


3.

as Janus’ neighbouring heads
do not communicate,
the future flows from the past
but won’t tell where it aims

we are like a third head,
blinded with both hope and regret,
but which a day shall watch over time
with that other form of non-seeing

we call forgiveness