DEFINING DIAGNOSIS

recalling Milton

So dark may come for me,
The compelling evidence suggests,
As relentlessly as dusk
When ambient light subsides,
And time peels field of vision back
And tunnel tapers into black
And eye resigns itself
Beneath the heft of its inheritance.

I have seen twilight fall each day,
A fleeting harbinger of night,
Itself impermanent, which bows
Before sure planetary lights
That find the narrow breach
In dark’s broad wall
And then array their luminance
Against the midnight pall.

Before depravity of shadow enters in,
Commences its hard press on me
And all the frailties of my sight,
I am resolved to look beyond myself
As moons for eons have
To find the source of constant light
By which is marked their course
Of praise, the glory they reflect.

So shall I defy this curse of blindness
Poised to destroy the fleshly eye
Which, looking in, is weak and focus dim
But looking out and fixed on Him,
Makes vision strong and magnifies the hope
And faith through which redeems
The promise that He made for me:
All the certain light that I shall need.