We Played our Blinder

I’m looking in.
        I want to see what’s inside because I hope it will be clearer, there.
And now they’re coming, the voices.
Now they’ve come, the people.
They’re every shape and size. They wear every colour and design. They call out to each other. They understand each other even though their words are different. They have come, they say, for a great celebration. They’ve brought food and they tell each other how they grew their ingredients, how they prepared them, to what festivals and name days they belong.
Round tables are laid with fluttering tablecloths, glasses, plates and cutlery of all shapes and sizes. Chairs of all sizes and shapes wait. The people find their places, all of them, all so different, but all together. They fill their glasses and their cups and they lift them. They turn to face in the same direction, towards me or, as I understand, from their beckoning welcoming gestures, towards us.
There are many of me, of us, on the outside.
But we are doubleblind: eyeblind and earblind.
We face them but we refuse to see them.
We were invited but we did not come.
We leave ourselves on the outside.
We played our blinder.