Lil's Glare

settled in with Alzheimer’s — all

the ire she swallowed all the years

of her too small old maid life

as hairdresser, also smaller than small town

journalist (Mr. & Mrs. Leo Jones

drove from Randolph, Mass. for a weekend

visit with Mr. Jones’s mother, Mrs.

Lillian Reardon Jones). Four siblings

returned to live back home — Tommy,

Charlie, Mary, & Lil. Their mother

Lillian (my grandmother) broke her hip,

lived another decade wheelchair

bound & diabetic. Lil ran the house —

caretaker, menu planner, bill

payer, task caster. She taught me

how to make macaroni & cheese,

let me read her notes for news stories

taken in her tidy hand. Lil’s best

friend Miriam — widowed & empty

nested — lived just three doors

down the street, most nights shared

Lil’s bedroom. Everyone played songs —

Red Red Robin Comes Bob

Bob Bobbin’ — we learned the words

& sang along. Later we grew up,

Lil & the siblings grew old, Charlie

& Tommy died. When Mary rolled up

the shades, Lil pulled them back down,

walked out to the river. Mary hunted

for her, coaxed her back. Lil snarled.

An hour later she’d be gone again

until they shut her away, exiled Lil

to where one day the glare died.

from Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways:

Anatomically speaking, the reason that the eyes of birds and animals glow uncanny colours in low light is due to the presence of the tapetum lucidum (the 'bright carpet'), a mirror-like membrane of iridescent cells that sits behind the retina. Light passes first through the rod and cone cells of the retina, then strikes the membrane and rebounds back through the retina towards the light source. In this way any available light is used twice to see with. What we are witnessing when we perceive 'eyeshine' is the colour of the tapetum lucidum itself, which varies between species and according to light conditions, but is often red in owls, pale blue in cows and greenish-gold in felines. Even moths and spiders possess this membrane, and their eyes can sometimes be seen in darkness as tiny silver stars.