Slackening

I have now reached the stage of slackening,
deteriorating eyesight
where I am constantly put out and surprised
to find that I need, but do not have, the glasses
I still do not always wear –

affronted by small-print instructions
in white text on pastel peach
or blue which tell me
how much of the thing to take
or how long to microwave it for –

illegible now in even the strongest light
until lensed into discernibility

and this is not a marvelsome plateau,
a rooftop garden of unsurpassed vantage
capping the slow rise of advancing wisdom,
self-acceptance, letting-go et cetera
but a midway resting point,
a busy mezzanine
on which I fuss and fidget, middle-aged,
crankily impaired,
rebuking the unaccommodating world
for foretastes of worse undoubtedly to come.