Near-death experiences blinded baby boy with his first lights,
followed by a quarter-century of lonesome torture and fright.
His parents crushed his spirit; so he was destined to fail.
Popular presumptions assured he would spend many years in jail. 

            W. H. Auden affirmed the future of that child without mirth
in his poem, September 1, 1939, the year of boy’s birth:
"I and the public know what all school children learn,
those to whom evil is done do evil in return."

            War, school failure, floggings, homelessness, hunger, hard labor slavery
earned this boy misunderstanding about his unending patient bravery.
Anxiety caused him to escape into books while he quietly suffered.
His mind shut out his adult-erated reality to keep from getting tortured.

  To whom such evil was done so early life cracked from deepest pain.
Lacking hate, wisdom and understanding became his gain.
Paradoxical insights and spiritual connections became his blessedness
that guides him to deal with overt and covert possibilities and helplessness.

            He maintained his youthful mind and body while growing older.
His singular successes challenged his efforts to become ever bolder.
Even so, many ill symptoms accumulated until he felt he was going to die.
Doctors puzzled his “serious illness” - but did not know why.

            A stranger phoned to tell him that chemicals kept making him sick.
He was suffering from the world’s greatest man-made epidemic.
Foregoing pills and consuming mostly Divine herbs and nutrition
restored his good health; long postponing his visit with the mortician.

            He keeps sharing his healing knowledge with a compassionate spirit.
Once with neck-rubbing group-thinker who did not want to hear it;
about the recovery from his stealthy, slow, modern-day death.
"You scare me!" the frightened one retorted and not under his breath.

            Ego, denial, false-belief entrapment can cause people to suffer.
Some cannot accept the lessons that survivors of man-made hell can offer.
Can you solve the paradox of why boy champion did not kill or did not die,
but a world traveler, spiritual care volunteer, inspirational speaker became I? 

When I feel the heat, I see the light.
~ US Senator Everett Dirksen

I have but one lamp ..., and that is the lamp of experience.
~ Patrick Henry

... to acquire wisdom one must observe.
~ Marilyn vos Savant

The only source of knowledge is experience.
~ Albert Einstein

Your pain is the breaking of the Shell that encloses your understanding.
~ Khalil Gibran

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
~Ayn Rand