Withholding Judgment (Album Leaf)
My eyes and brain can’t agree. The work of aging? Illness? Unclear. In the months before visual therapy takes hold, I lose near focus. Reading, writing, handcrafts.
the one canyon towhee
that talks to herself
while she eats
Without them, the constraints of old illness feel new.
all
day
the neighbors’ rooster
Every waking second my brain must choose which eye to trust. Wrong information costs me. Time, thought, sentences. All fragment. Yet the dishes get washed, the bills paid.
Without words at my fingertips, it all seems accidental. Intuitive?
squabbling in the trees—
I hear the kingbirds
are still courting
Curtains tame the sun to a bright blur while I drift.
I haven’t slept this well in years.
from underneath
the sunlight
through a raven’s wing