When central vision shrinks
Into the black hole
Of universal losses,
It is sudden
As the light that blinded Saul
On the road to Damascus.
 
A conversion to darkness
Means text blurs to arguments
About the sense of meaning. What
Compensates for the years
Of prayer? Light lurks at the periphery
Like good intentions. A shade glimpsed
The way a deer at the roadside appears,
Ready to cross. Like sin waiting in ambush
For a woman who has lost her sight.
How a man, scrofulous as Dr. Johnson endured
Torment, his scrotum enlarged
Like the web-nest of a gigantic oriole.
 
A woman squinting at a photo of her first grandson
Mutters bitterly “I can’t see him.”
The art of living tells us to be patient
Reading the book of time.