I want to cry: but I didn’t blind you!
The other day in the library, he said:
“I wanted to write something great... During the war, I conceived of a series of island poems, bucolic, legendary, praise of this life.” And he motioned toward the ocean and our island.
“Dictate to me,” I said, hoping to rouse his impulse.
His silence, at first natural enough, went on, and I became embarrassed by his stare at the bookshelves.
“I want to help you, Alcaeus.”
Again the silence. How was I to get through it?
Taking a volume of his poems, I read aloud several of his favorites. Slowly, his face relaxed and he settled deeper in his chair. After a while, he said:
“Read some of yours, Sappho.”
I opened a book, one of my earliest ones, and read several passages. But I could not continue; I felt my mind wrapped in fog; my hands became icy. I shut my eyes and said to myself: See, this is what it’s like to be blind. You’re blind, blind to love and life...