Second Sight - Dec 20 2025

 

Second Sight

Dec 20 2025

Since they replaced my clouded lens

a gauzy curtain has been swept aside,

the near-sightedness

that confined me most of my life

zoomed out,

revealing a world

of startling clarity

I long forgot existed. 

No more glasses,

no more squinting and straining to see.

But for every gain, a loss;

so now, I hold my book at arms length

and turn up the light to read.

I’m not saying that life is zero sum,

but to get you must give,

and a good part of living

is doing without.

All in all, perhaps this is for the best —

to take the long view

see further ahead.

The myopia

of solipsistic youth

has become the more generous vision

that comes with age;

a trade-off, of sorts

for the succession of loss 

that more often than not

is the cost of getting old.

Along with the artificial hip

I feel a little like the ship

in which every timber’s been replaced

 — a brand new ship

yet still the same.

Just as every cell has been remade

who knows how many times over the years;

yet I’m still me

despite the thinning hair

and sagging skin,

the extra pounds and fleshy face.

So who knows what the alchemy is

and where it lives

that determines this ineffable “self”,

so unique and persistent

from the moment it enters the world.

Of course, it’s not the eye that sees;

it simply receives the light

while the brain constructs the image

and right or wrong

makes sense of the world

 — like a maître de

who greets you at the door

but doesn’t cook the meal.

An older brain

that, like the clouded lens, also sees differently;

not so much ahead

as back,

and more measured than its callow counterpart 

 — not as fast

but perhaps more accurately

than impulsive youth

in all its certainty and swagger

and insecure posturing.  

All in all, not a bad way to see the world;

the gift of second sight

by way of modern medicine

and incremental time. 

I underwent an intraocular lens implant 4 days ago. My vision has sharpened remarkably and I no longer need glasses for distance, but there are trade-offs. Near vision isn’t as good. I expected that. And unexpectedly (since I never bothered with my glasses at home), the house looks so much messier:  dust, scuffed wood, scratched paint, dog hair, and general wear and tear. The secret to the well-kept house:  all the lights on dimmers and keep your glasses off. (Unfortunately, mine no longer come off!)

Literal distant vision can also be a metaphor for the far sightedness of taking the long view:  age not only changes your lens, it changes your brain as well. That device was the starting point of the poem, and is still at its core — despite my usual self-indulgent  tangents and discursions (the fun stuff!) 

It’s easy to take for granted  these modern prosthetics (especially when IOL implantation is a quick outpatient procedure), forgetting how fortunate we are compared to even a single decade ago, and that we stand on the shoulder of giants — how we are the beneficiaries of a long and great collective effort; how modern medicine rests on centuries of suffering, basic science, and trial and error.)