Helen Keller Poem by Jim Yerman

Imagine a baby being born healthy...oh what a happy day!
Then imagine 19 months later a sickness strips it all away.

Imagine a sickness stealing your eyes and ears...never to give them back
Imagine living in a world of silence that is also bathed in black.

Of course you can’t imagine that unless it happens to you
But this is the only life that Helen Keller ever knew.

How do you learn the color red, or understand a tree
Or appreciate a cloud when all these you cannot see?

How do you learn a sound, or understand a tear
Or appreciate your mother’s voice when all these you cannot hear?

How can you learn to sing when you cannot hear the birds?
How can you learn to talk when you cannot hear the words?

How can you learn to read when the words are not in sight?
How, if you cannot see the letters, will you ever learn to write?

If you read about Helen Keller you too will be enthralled
Because, with the help of one great teacher, she learned to do it all.

She learned to read and write and talk, meeting all her lofty goals
By somehow seeing with her heart and hearing with her soul.

If you take the time to learn...how impressed with her you will be
As she lived in a darkened silence filled with grace and dignity.

I imagine if you were blind and deaf the problems you would face
Would make all other problems seem small and commonplace.

So I suggest when faced with obstacles you find over-burdensome
And you think there is no way they can ever be overcome.

Remember Helen Keller who overcame and never looked back
A world blanketed in silence...a world submerged in black.