The jelly-like goo
pulls away from my retina.
A light show
flashes and arcs across my left
eye, spilling torn tissue flotsam—
space debris strewn
about my visual universe.

Holy shit.

Score another point for
aging, further need for living
a fierce
grace.

(No. 90 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

There I was at work one day when this event unfolded. Wow. I later learned that 3/4 of us will have experience this by our elder years.

“Fierce grace” is Ram Dass’s term. And the title of a wonderful film about his dealing with, as his guru put it, being “stroked.”

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)