My Grandfather's Glasses

A shift of light reveals my lenses’ smears

‘Til then unseen in shadow where I write;

Reveals how I have come, with passing years,

To see through false impediments to sight.

Appalled at their neglect, obsessed, I’d scour

His lenses new, prideful in my need,

Believing I restored his sight to power;

Blind to his indifference to my deed.

What did he see, on what did inward gaze?

No doubt the same things I now contemplate:

The simple truths aglow amidst the haze;

The rise and fall of fortunes, small and great;

From one’s deeds, some lasting legacy,

Some lingering hope of immortality.