Blind Patrick

We lived in a two bedroom semi detached house in Mayfair and our Landlord (who was also our neighbour) was a blind man whose Christian name was Patrick. I don’t know that I ever knew his surname and I certainly can’t remember it now so I refer to him simply as “Blind Patrick”.
Every day except Sundays, Patrick would walk the three blocks from his home to the tram terminus where he would board a tram to take him into the City. In the City he would walk a block and a half to his spot beside the Northern aspect of the City Hall and there he would stand all day, tin cup in hand, begging for a coin or two from passersby. At about five-o-clock he would leave his spot and retrace his steps home. I knew his routine because I had once travelled into the City with him.

Blind Patrick

Ears straining to detect amidst the familiar comforting sounds

Those that warn of danger

He walks with cautious confidence born of years of practice

White stick, tap tapping

Boarding the tram for the trip into town is a long acquired skill

Performed with exaggerated action

And the sightless journey is punctuated only by the greetings

Of those identified by voice alone

Alight at journey’s end and tap with measured step the distance

To his own appointed place

There to stand protected by unwritten law that forbids intrusion

By another of his kind

A penny in a tin cup rattles to attract those who would make

Some small donation

And for those passing guilty by looking at some distant point

Just a hint of a smile

What visions inhabit his mind? What shape and size and colour

Does he apply to city sounds?

For never having seen these things do they appear to him

As they do to us?

Does he simply accept them for what he has been told they are

Giving them no further form

Content that they exist as described by some sighted soul

Needing nothing more

Is he certain only that today will pass as did yesterday?

And as will tomorrow?

Content to challenge with unseeing eyes that which he knows not

Yet knows so well?

Is each step taken, each day successfully negotiated

A singular achievement?

Or is he so accustomed to his lot that like us his only fear

Is of the unknown?

Seek no answers in his face for his serene countenance

Affords no clues

Nor do his unseeing eyes yield solutions but prompt instead

Further questions

Keep then your secrets Blind Patrick and continue in weather

Fair and foul

To challenge the sighted world with indomitable courage

White stick tap tapping