Sobre a Deficiência Visual

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A year ago I began to notice that my sight was slipping away. I sat at home alone and felt the darkness settle around me. But today I walked outside into the thin gray rain and made my way to the subway. I have a journey to go on. There are some things I need to find.

I walk down, down, down, to the subway platform where the wind never blows and the rain never falls.

Waiting for the train, I start to wonder if all the subway tracks in the world join together. Then where would I go? Anywhere I can imagine.

I push my way onto a train full of people. Do they all have someone waiting for them at the other end?

The train shudders to a stop. The doors slide open. I don't remember what this station looks like. What will be around me when I step outside?

I climb the stairs toward the exit, careful that I don't trip and fall. As slowly as an elephant, I plod up and up, peacefully, patiently, one step at a time.

When at last I walk out of the tunnel I can't see the light, but I can feel the leaves falling like sunshine all around me. I've heard a story that somewhere nearby one golden leaf is buried.

I want to pick some apples, heavy in my hands with their juice. They'll smell sweet and red. They'll taste plump and round.

Back underground, the train scoops me up and, like a memory carries me along.

A new station. Up the stairs again. What if I stepped out into an ocean? I dream that I know the language of dolphins, that I can hear the secrets of the sea.

I've forgotten how blue the sky can be. But in my mind I still watch the clouds change shape.

I never noticed before that the train in the tunnel sounds like waves against a distant shore.

I wonder what would happen if I stepped off the last stair and found nothing beneath my foot.

Maybe the air would teach me to fly just like it teaches the birds,

....and the wind would blow me back to the trains and set me gently down.

Sometimes, the streets twist themselves into a maze.

But if you look hard enough there's always a way out.

I'll never know if this station is the same as it was yesterday. Did it change overnight? Grow into something new?

Maybe I've come to the last station in the world. But this can't be the end of my journey I haven't found what I need.

Trains rumble and clank and rush past me. Which is the right one? It's easy to get lost underground.

I wonder where I am and where I'm going,

...and if I'm getting closer to what I'm searching for.

A little boy asks me how to get home. "I'm looking, too," I tell him.

Home is the place where everything I've lost is waiting patiently for me to find my way back.

The last thing I lost was the light, as if somebody played a joke on me, turned off the swatch. I tried and tried, but I couldn't find it again. So I went forward, step by step, into the dark.

Now I listen for the sound of the colors I can't see. I try to smell the shape taste the light and dark.

And I hope to find a friend who will read me a poem while the window fills up with sunset.

There must be someone who'll sit beside me, sip tea, tell me her hopes for the future, and listen to mine.

Even when I'm tired of the jolting trains and the stairs up and down, one thought keeps me going — someone could be waiting for me at the other end.

He'll take my hand and hold the umbrella over me. He'll tell me what the stars look like. He'll walk by my side all night long.

Listen! Far ahead, at the end of the tunnel, can you hear it? A butterfly is flapping her wings. I can feel the wind she makes brushing against my face.