I've been enthralled by the Paralympics. As a disabled person myself I've felt inspired - an over-used word admittedly - to seek to offer more and be more. I was stunned, however, watching the women athletes participating in the Long Jump for the blind. Not least by the way 80000 hushed themselves and the athletes gave themselves over to the beat. This poem is a tribute to the athletes and the crowd.
Blind Long Jumping
So this
is how a world might
become
small, coming down
to a
clap, a beat, a voice.
She’s
heard it growing for years,
exploring
where it goes, learning
its lead.
Now she knows it well
enough. Who
cares what has been
lost or
found? There is only the beat
of clapping
hands, a private rhythm
everyone understands.
If there
was nothing else, it would
still be
enough. She has it all.
The
silence, the breath,
the
sound. She steps, she runs,
leaping
into dark, into light.
Into
orbit at last.
(London Paralympics 2012)
