With Glass Eyes

With Glass Eyes
© Surazeus
2015 09 21

I see the dead more clearly with glass eyes,
for all around me in my memories
they struggle to survive ten thousand years
and urge my actions with excess of hope.

I trudge the narrow streets of city maze
and see my face fly past in shining glass,
then pause amazed by bridge of streaming thoughts
to realize why people thought they saw ghosts.

Our minds envision scenes of active play
that flash before our eyes while we walk way
of winding lanes through silent listening woods,
and seem to see their faces in the air.

I stop and close my eyes on busy street
and dream about young woman of my genes
who lived twenty generations ago
and remember how she invented ghosts.

Young woman who birthed my immortal soul
walks alone in woods, searching for her home,
but her near-sighted eyes cannot see clear,
so she walks lost in world of blurry shapes.

I shiver when my memory flashes bright
vision of my mother in streaming light
because I long to see her, though she lies
rotting to mud in her river-side grave.

Around me in the woods of shadowed rays
I see blurry bodies of moving forms,
not knowing my eyes can barely see clear,
so I grope forward in twilight of fear.

The crazy bearded man in tower of stone
from evening shadow looms and grips my hand,
and leads me trembling through warm door of light,
then wraps me safe by hearth of gleaming flames.

I see ghost of my mother everywhere,
I whisper, staring at his bright blue eyes,
though I know she is dead and buried deep
on river shore where apple trees bloom white.

The wizard holds small sphere of shining glass,
bright jewel he claims he forged from fallen star,
then sets it close before my blinking eye
and bids me perceive this world with glass eyes.

From blurry shapes of shifting color beams,
in sudden sharp relief of well-shaped forms,
emerge from wild illusions of my fear
solid objects of things I now see clear.

I often had to move too close to things
and lean my face so I could see things clear,
but now this shining jewel of dreaming star
allows my eyes to see things as they are.

I walk outside his tower in glow of dawn
and stare at grove of trees with fluttering leaves
that gleam so clear as never seen before
and there I weep with joy on river shore.

I see shapes of trees and every leaf clear,
and white blossoms on limbs of apple trees
gleam in perfect symmetry of shape,
and distant hills shimmer by shining lake.

Amazed I stare to see birds dart in trees,
spotted deer leaping among distant groves,
large brown cows grazing on lush slopes of hills,
and shining clouds swirling in clear blue sky.

All my life I saw no more than blurred shapes
of flickering colors, but now I perceive
beautiful symmetry of our whole world,
till my eyes blur again with joyful tears.

Continuing on my walk in city street
I ponder how that woman in my dreams,
who lived a thousand years before I wake,
thought she saw ghosts because she could not see.

Even now, as I walk past coffee shops
and bookstores crowded with students who talk
I see visions flash clear before my eyes
that beam before my face in empty space.

Now I know my brain, while perceiving world
of real forms where I walk, beams visions clear
so I see both this real world and dream world
in one flowing stream of conscious account.

When nameless ancestor, centuries ago,
whose brain could generate visions of hope,
first saw faces of people in clear air,
they thought spirits of the dead could still walk.

Now I know my brain generates their forms
from memories of their faces and their words
so spirits beam nowhere but in my mind,
while I dream this world I see with glass eyes.

I see the ghosts of every human being
who ever lived in visions of my eyes
for I conjure their forms from graves of books
and spring them alive with spells of sung words.