A parable

A man, blind from birth,
Is given the gift of sight.
The bandages come off.
He hears the voice of his beloved wife,
And sees…

An incomprehensible blather of light,
A tide of something he has never experienced,
Like water poured on the back
Of a desert beetle,
Or love in the heart
Of a man who has known only
Survival.

A week later,
He is blind again,
Rejecting the meaningless confusion
He has lived without his whole life.

His wife, devastated,
Leaves him,
Thinking she has seen him as he really is,
Ungrateful, mean.

He thinks he knows her at last
For the first time,
A creature wholly devoid of empathy.

Meanwhile, the sun rises over the desert,
And light falls on a beetle,
Scuttling under gathering clouds.