Poem Review: Blindfolds
Albeit delayed, I aim to finish the last Ponder 2023 review this week. But work and travel occupy my days, and I am walking through my days blindfolded. The beauty of a blindfold is the sudden transformation of your sensory landscape. Your eyesight is blocked, but your auditory and olfactory senses sharpen. It is because of the sudden availability of the brain’s attention toward these senses.
“Blindfolded, your feelings are enhanced. You see less, you see nothing, but you feel more. You feel everything.”
― Chloe Thurlow, Girl Trade
Yet there is more to blindfolds. A blindfolded journey in life can be exhilarating and frustrating at the same time. What about a blindfolded walkabout of verses? The ones that you can feel, but can’t see.
Presenting a doubleheader as below:
‘Blindfolded, We Peep Within’ is an intense poem by Shobhana Kumar that explores how one is forced to look within when the eyes are blindfolded.
‘Blindfolds’ by Priya Patel on how she had enough of walking blindfolded through her life, and how her father and son are helping her heal;
Blindfolded — metaphorical or not, is a unique situation for all of us to be in. Let us begin with the first poem.
Poem 1: Blindfolded, we peep within
In darkness veiled,
the whispers embark,
An intricate dance of
light and dark.
Unseen visions
tease the seeking eyes,
Revealing truths
with a cryptic guise.Ponder, blindfolded, free,
The mysteries that only
darkness can see,
With hidden meanings
whispering beneath,
The blindfold touch,
a gateway to believe.© Shobhana Kumar
Commentary on Poem 1:
Poet Shobhana opens our eyes to how it feels behind a blindfolded situation.
In darkness veiled,
the whispers embark,
An intricate dance of
light and dark.
As a poet, I cherish my eyes. I love to see, look, and watch. Even in the darkness, our eyes adjust searching for shapes and silhouettes and making sense of the panorama in front of us. We see things differently in the dark than in the light.
Now, imagine that our eyes are open, but they are blocked through a thick veil of cloth. We can see, but cannot look. Our eyes feel like they are chained, but can move, but they are stuck. The eyes struggle, literally yanking the chains, trying to see through the veil that is almost rubbing it in.
It takes a while to settle down. The screams in our heads become whispers because we give in to the silent yet strong chain that we can’t break; the veil in front of us is unyielding; so our brains and eyes start to adjust to the situation. The eyes still search for light and end up seeing the darkness. The veil is not all perfect, there are little gaps in the cloth and small streaks of light tease the appetite for freedom. This struggle becomes an intricate dance — a dance of freedom ( to see the light) and the trap of the veil ( the darkness).
Unseen visions
tease the seeking eyes,
Revealing truths
with a cryptic guise.
The desperation of the incarcerated eyes, trying to look through the gaps in the veil brings both distorted imagery through the dance of light and a quick, unseen imagery that the brain has cobbled together. Sometimes, what you see is your imagination, and what you imagine is the truth; and this contradiction is slowly revealed to you through the cryptic view of the blindfold.
Ponder, blindfolded, free,
The mysteries that only
darkness can see,
But is it a trap? Well, ponder. It is just like our life behind our curtains. Or life in the shadows. Darkness, is our friend, my friends. It is a new world — like the world of nocturnal creatures. They thrive in darkness. Our minds can turn into nocturnal beings in a whiff. Once settled, they can sniff and see the mysteries that lie in the shades.
With hidden meanings
whispering beneath,
The blindfold touch,
a gateway to believe.
The unseen- and unsaid- before sights and sounds emerge, creating whole new meanings for our sensory experience. The blindfold shuts off our visual experience, creating a tantalizing dance of light and darkness in the fringes of our eyes, and making us look inward.
As we look inward, we walk through the dark recesses of our mind, where light seldom enters, like a cave, but we walk and explore inside — to discover the faith that we are made of.
“It’s the inward attention that takes you into the depth of the mind.”
― Roshan Sharma
And blindfolds do just that. Enabling you to peep within yourself… and explore the real darkness within.
Poem 2: Blindfold
I think, sometimes,
I walk through life
with blindfolds on
I lean towards the dark
and ignore the light
that in my mind is already gone
I see only what I want to see
and blindly ignore
what is right in front of me;
forever walking through life
with these blindfolds on
How inhibiting this has been
I have always believed
that I was broken, but the truth is
that I am forever healing
and I’m ok with that feeling
because I’m tired of
seeing through these blindfoldsToday, I tried to stop worrying
about everyone around me
I tried living in the moment
and what a glorious sight to see,
like my son smiling so bright
I could see the light in his eyes
and the happiness on my dad’s face
when I met him at his favorite place
and we spent an hour
reminiscing about yesterday’s
All this I saw today
It’s definitely time I think,
to throw these blindfolds away~ Priya Patel 🕉, March 4, 22
Commentary of Poem 2:
Poet Priya expresses her challenges walking through the quagmire of life without any view — because she feels that she is blindfolded by life itself. How can a path blindfold a person? Let us examine here.
I think, sometimes,
I walk through life
with blindfolds on
I lean towards the dark
and ignore the light
that in my mind is already gone
I see only what I want to see
and blindly ignore
what is right in front of me;
Life is a path that leads us from birth to death. We walk on this path every day and night and traverse its twists and turns. It is a journey filled with surprises and shocks. As the poet walks on her path called life, she feels that she is wearing a blindfold — a sort of metaphorical eyewear — and looking at the dark. The fact that she could, but did not — lean towards the light, but ignored it is a voluntary act of blindfolding herself.
Her ignorance, her wanton way of only seeing things that she wanted to, refers to the darkness behind the blindfolds — call it selective myopia. She ‘ignores what is right in front of her’, as her eyes choose to wear the metaphorical blindfold. It is not about her eyes, but it is about her choices in those phases of life that make this poem interesting.
forever walking through life
with these blindfolds on
How inhibiting this has been
I have always believed
that I was broken, but the truth is
that I am forever healing
and I’m ok with that feeling
because I’m tired of
seeing through these blindfolds
Why would somebody do it — walking through life blindfolded? She knows that it has been inhibiting her journey — her legs feel like lead, her heart is heavy, and her head is vacant… she always believed that she was broken.
“Maybe I’d always been broken and dark inside.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury
Was she always broken? She believed so, that too, for a long time. Brokenness is often a state of mind — being broken is different from feeling broken. But often, both are the same. The veil of blindfold makes perception the reality, where the darkness becomes the day and the light becomes the night. A state of contradictory existence. Such a state of equilibrium ends somewhere. Darkness seeks light, and light seeks shadows. The intricate dance comes to an end.
We go through the present blindfolded… Only later, when the blindfold is removed and we examine the past, do we realize what we’ve been through and understand what it means. ~Milan Kundera
When the dance of light and darkness ends, the blindfold goes away. We realize that we are on a path that we were supposed to be, and we are where we are supposed to be. The path has its twists and turns, ups and downs, but each of those curves has a meaning, shaping our lives — healing the wounds through the balm of time.
Today, I tried to stop worrying
about everyone around me
I tried living in the moment
and what a glorious sight to see,
like my son smiling so bright
I could see the light in his eyes
and the happiness on my dad’s face
when I met him at his favorite place
and we spent an hour
reminiscing about yesterday’s
All this I saw today
It’s definitely time I think,
to throw these blindfolds away
The poet removes the blindfold and sees what is in front of her — the people who are left in her life. Her dad and sons. Her favorite people. Her blindfolds have kept her in a dark place, deep inside her; now that she has burst out in the open, and engaged with the present, she can see what she has been missing. The love from and the happiness in her loved ones.
What glorious sights they behold! She sees her son whose eyes shine in exuberance, and she remembers that he is a part of her, yet a different person; and they are bound by their love. His happiness is contagious, and she smiles when she realizes that the moments with her son are to be cherished.
And her father…she remembers that she is a part of him, and he is happy when she visits her. An hour of their time together is a day full of happiness for him. They remember the days gone by but they cherish the moments of their togetherness.
All this is possible because she realizes that the blindfolded walk through her life has to end, and it is time for her to throw the blindfolds away.
Blindfold:
A Blindfold is like an eye mask. An eyemask is worn when you want to sleep, and a blindfold is worn when you are awake. An eyemask represents your escape to your dreams, while a blindfold represents your struggle to be awake and live.
“I’ve finally given in, my eyes are shut under the blindfold. I can hear and smell, but I cannot see. My hands are clammy I feel cold yet I am warm. It is what I wanted, but I am now unsure, dubious yet at the same time excited and curious. I would like to think I felt a bit like Alice just before she fell down the hole into the rabbit hole. Yet there are no rabbits here… not even those of the rampant persuasion.”
― Leonora Morrison
Metaphorically and literally, blindfolds represent a visual handicap — a constraint that one has to live with, fight through, and liberate oneself to see the reality of the present — the light amid the darkness. The blindfolded journey of the two poems is as fascinating as the poems themselves.
As we turn a page towards the new year, we walk into the future, blindfolded.
~Ashok Subramanian © 2024
