Spectacles

I was visiting my mom and dad recently who together
Are nearly two hundred years old, and they savor naps
In the afternoon. We believe we have earned our naps,
As my dad says with a smile, and when they lay down
They remove their respective spectacles and fold them
Ever so carefully and place them on their night-tables,
In exactly the same places every day and night, so that
Their hands can reach out slowly gently hesitantly but
With a quiet confidence to find them when they awake.
We think that there are small things and small gestures
And insignificant daily stuff, but that is the most arrant
Nonsense. I saw the dignified hesitancy of their hands,
The calm way their hands went to meet their spectacles,
The spectacles waiting patiently. The brilliance of craft
And creativity that invented the spectacles. The sinewy
Of the hands, the lean yearn of them, the runes of scars.
I could watch their hands arise from abed, and go quest
For that which allows the shepherds of the hands to see,
I could watch that every day, watch them stir and smile
And don spectacles and say Time for tea, do you think?

~ Brian Doyle