“Among sparse stars,/Not yet flawed, it drifts” (Du Fu, trans. David Hinton)

1.

A routine examination, my eyes, photographed, dilated, lit by intense lamps. The ophthalmologist, the one who diagnosed retinal tears in 2018 after I fell on ice in Edmonton, the one who repaired first the one, then the second one appearing a month or so later, said this afternoon, There’s another tear in the right retina. You need a laser procedure immediately. How the heart sinks. How the mind thinks of the literal eyes, aging, threadbare, how the eye flinches as the special lens is fixed, the darts of the laser burning the edges of the hole. I was still. I tried to breath deeply and forget what happening. I couldn’t forget. Not the first time, not the second, and not this third time. My eyes are a patchwork of small scars.

2.

How many times have we walked to Haskins Creek to watch the salmon sidle up its swift clear waters? How many times have we seen the female digging the redd, laying her eggs, the male hovering near, depositing his milt over the eggs. How many times have we seen eggs washed out of their nests by a sudden freshet, washed down the creek, the mergansers waiting for the strays. How many times.

3.

Last week I got up in the night, came downstairs to my desk. Outside, the strawberry moon hung in the sky just beyond the house. Strawberries ripening, eggs in the nests, lovers holding one another in the dark. And me, looking out, thinking that the shimmering stars were in the sky.

4.

Above the tower — a lone, twice-sized moon.
On the cold river passing night-filled homes,
It scatters restless gold across the waves.
On mats, it shines richer than silken gauze.

Empty peaks, silence: among sparse stars,
Not yet flawed, it drifts. Pine and cinnamon
Spreading in my old garden . . . All light,
All ten thousand miles at once in its light!

–Du Fu, trans. David Hinton

Note: photograph of salmon eggs from Raincoast Conservation Foundation site; photograph of strawberry moon from the Weather Network; eye photographs from today’s ophthalmologist appointment.