“The Handicapped” by Philip Dacey – Anthology & Interpretation

“The Handicapped” by Philip Dacey

1
The missing legs
of the amputee
are away somewhere winning a secret race.

2
The blind man has always stood
before an enormous blackboard,
waiting for the first
scrawl of light,
that fine
dusty chalk.

3
Here
the repetitions of the stutterer, there
the flickering of the stars.

4
Master of illusion,
the paralytic alone moves.
All else is still.

5
At Creation,
God told the deaf,
“Only you will hear
the song of the stone.”

6
Dare not ask
what the dumb
have been told to keep secret.

7
When the epileptic
falls in a fit,
he is ascending
to the heaven of earth.

My Interpretation

Humanity resides in all of us.
The old, the young,
the poor and the rich,
the weak and the strong,
the sick and the healthy,
the fast and the slow,
the fat and the thin,
the broken and the less broken.

We all own, live, flourish in what
HUMANITY brings.
It brings out the good,
it shows us how to be kind.
It allows us to see past four-
fingers and see eight.

No longer do we categorize in
lines that separate,
but by those that have become
blurred. Treasuring the good,
the bad, the ugly.

Our souls cry out, reaching
for our humanity and
see life through its care-free
and joyous eyes.
We plunge into the brisk
freshness of grace, and mercy.

Its calming waters cascading
down the aches and pains that
strive to break us. It blurs our
vision so that we can no longer see
our lives through the lazy fog
caging our hopes and dreams.

Our humanity allows us to
fly amidst the stars on the
brink of eternity. Flying in
freedom with the broken
and chained. For they see
the world through the clear
drops of humanity.

They are the holders of grace and mercy.
For they understand and hold the greatest
wisdom for the misunderstood.
Feeling the ins and outs of a treacherous
journey. Leading the pilgrimage to
peace and hope.

Those who were chained to a chair
leap and dance in freedom on our
walk. The blind will look to the sky for
directions. The deaf and dumb will converse
with the birds to learn of the future.
The imprisoned smile the smile of the saved.

No longer will humanity be a distant part
of the soul but the guiding light in the
darkness of our eternity.

---