Eye and Heart

Word has just come down that my heart sac is no longer of abnormal size which in turn means that I shall soon get my left eye back. My sinister lens has been delinquent for the past couple of months. One forgives prodigal body parts for straying. I’m happy to have all my original equipment returned even though many friends have new hips and walk with late model knees. 

The body is a lesson in connectivity. The occasional pain in my toe is somehow tied to my pancreas which can’t process all the bagels my teeth have chewed on.

Since mid-December I have been looking at the world with Cyclopean vision. Sometimes half is more than enough to surmise what sort of trouble we’re in. Even the unilateral sight of Ted Cruz is more than I can handle.

Our architecture is a wondrous thing. How the scaffolding holds together and compensates when needed. A neuropathy in my right hand signals the left to open jars. No search engine browses better than our brains. At least it knows what to delete and separates what’s important from what’s more important. We are our own password.

I used to be a high-rise but seem to have lost a few floors on my way to becoming a tear-down. It wouldn’t hurt to get that second window back. At this age I’m girding my loins for insults yet to come.

Fortunately I never got much beyond touch football so I don’t have to worry about chronic traumatic encephalopathy. If I’ve ever been concussed it must have slipped my mind. I won’t have to watch the Super Bowl in a stupor. My favorite part of the game is the huddle. They even have a minion to satisfy the gods.

We’re all going to use up our allotted time but why hasten the day? I know it’s hard to be good. Red wine? Bluesy sax. Red apples? Blue in the face. The occasional Reuben sandwich is almost worth dying for... an hour or two earlier.

The eye and the heart work together. By heart, how else but by heart, to learn snatches of the poets. How so much depends on the red wheelbarrow (Williams) besides the green freedom of the cockatoo (Stevens) while yellow smoke rubs its muzzle on the window pane. (Eliot) What do you think of your blue-eyed boy now, Mr. Death? (Cummings).