Vision

My friend Lonnie Holley, a visual artist, wrote this to me on a painting: "To see art is to see."

I see art everywhere, mostly now with my camera and my (poor) vision. I no longer focus sharply on objects far or near, however, though I see shapes, shadows, shades of color. I rejoice in those. I could stand long and look at one leaf, or one butterfly, or one fleck of pollen on a blossom's cheek.
What I can no longer do is read for pleasure. Thanks to a cataract, the words on a page will not come into focus, will not cohere in one line; they slide and shimmy, instead, in some kind of taunting dance of defiance. After only a few minutes, my head hurts, my eyes hurt, my concentration is broken.

I try to remind myself that even the blind see, though with senses other than a lens. Cold comfort when I cannot hold a book and see the stores created by the squiggles on the page. I miss that miraculous act of envisioning.