I awoke today with this line from e.e. cummings running through my mind. That poem has long been a resonant favorite of mine, rich in spiritual import, powerfully simple, a model of reflective introspection.

But this morning was the day after cataract surgery for my left eye, and with a paper-taped shield partially obstructing my vision, I was not anticipating I would experience the results of the surgery until later today. As I began to move around after arising, however, I began to notice I was seeing things differently: vivid colors, laser-edge clarity, complex textures, depth (seeing through the branches and leaves of our trees to blades of grass on the hill beyond, for example).

This was not the stuff of getting a new pair of lenses for my glasses. This is discovery of a new visual world. It leads me to think I have been looking through a lens effect cinematographers once used (and perhaps still do) to create a fuzzy border around a scene be applying Vaseline to the circumference of a lens.

According to my ophthalmologist, the acuity properties of the new lens should continue to improve for about a month (!). After that, entropy takes over and, as with life itself, it’s all downhill after the peak. Alas! But I do get to go through the process with the right eye in a little over a month. Perhaps that will extend my world of discovery even further ( x-ray vision?).

For me this experience, however fleeting or temporary, goes well beyond the physical, affecting my attitudes and outlook in general. I have a sense of buoyancy as I move around, a degree of expectation wherever I look, an up-ratcheted optimism about whatever is next.

“now the eyes of my eyes are open…”