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Hugo Williams

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The Beggar

Just past the pink coral crescents
Of waves left to dry on the beach
Crouched an old blind marine, his hands
Listening like those of the leach,

Or fluttering over a flank
Of sand, like those of the life-
Giving masseur, smoothing something
From it, palm curved like a knife.

Before him his destiny: the rough
Hewn form of a woman lies and round
Laugh young boys as he touches
Her thigh, piles up sand for the mound

Of her breast; became long ago immune
To how visible a man is, himself blind:
How much wider open his spirit
To man’s regard, one who cannot see behind

His own closed eyelids. So now
He is like a gardener who sows
Seeds in the earth, yanks weeds,
Clears the soil around a rose,

Hands stretched out as if remembering
His wife’s warm face, perhaps to greet
Her, or again simply to spy the pink crescents
And hopped imprints of Man Friday feet.

 

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