Because of my blindness, I had developed a new faculty. Strictly speaking, we all have it, but almost all forget to use it. That faculty is attention. In order to live without eyes it is necessary to be very attentive, to remain hour after hour in a state of wakefulness, of receptiveness and activity. Indeed, attention is not simply a virtue of intelligence or the result of education, and something one can easily do without. It is a state of being . . . a state without which we shall never know wholeness. In its truest sense it is the listening post of the universe.
O sovereign angel,
Wide-winged stranger
above a forgetful earth,
Care for me, care for me,
Keep me unaware of danger
And not regretful
And not forgetful
of my innocent birth.