EYES

Mine have seen first breaths and lasts,
the beginning and end of everything,

green shoots and heaps of rotting leaves.
They’ve seen horses pulling coal drays,

milk bottle tops pecked by blue-tits,
peace camps, walls torn down, glass

ceilings cracking, gay weddings,
but children slippered in class, life vests

washed up beside migrant boats,
turtles choked by plastic bags, smoking ruins.

Mine are hooded now, the teal and amber
marbled irises surrounded by crinkled deltas

of skin, but still see clearly thanks to small
acrylic miracles and astonishing dexterity.

Yours are wide and bright, the whites whiter
than paper, almost blue, the irises two shades

of grey, dove grey circled by wet-slate grey.
They can spot the smallest dot of crumb,

bending to retrieve it, or point to the woods
where a squirrel is camouflaged against a trunk.

I can see what’s coming, my vision unclouded
by the twin cataracts of helplessness and dismay.

Polar bears claim abandoned villages. Tanks roll
in again. Together we watch the leaves fall.