A Moment Alights

So there I stood in a doctor’s office,
my eyes having been just examined
with a chin-bearing and eye-blinking apparatus
operated by a young female technician.
In a mild flirtation I said:
“Well, you are one of the few people who have gazed into my soul.”
She smiled politely and said:
“When I was a child, on my first visit to the optometrist,
the doctor told me he could tell what I had for breakfast.”
A look of fond remembrance fell over her face,
and it was then, in a blink of an eye, my breath stopped and I saw.

I saw what the Inventor, the Poet, the Mystic all See -
the look of Seeing Things As If For the First Time,
the look of Gratitude of Being Alive,
the look of Awe that is in all Youth,
the look of an Open and Receptive Mind.

I saw that this Light of Wonder,
though buried underneath the crushing edifice of Adult Habit,
a fragile, flickering flame,
will alight for any and all,
whose Attention is deft to See and Savor.

I let go of my breath and breathed in this becoming fire.