paroxysm

Sometimes the back side of eyes open.
Lids of memory lifting for a moment.
Long enough to glance at tableaux
in full swing of happening long ago.

A luminescence there from eyes?
Or from the glow of intenser time?

A father is filling up a radiant space
with his lion-certain love and strength.

He is now dead.

A mother is moving in a biblical grace
of psalm lived out through her caring.

She is now dead.

Sometimes the back side of eyes open,
but only for an instant of remembering.

Then they slam shut before they go blind.