My mother has cancer
She told me yesterday
Now it’s a waiting game
But somehow
The word, “game”
Does not fit
With the words
In this poem
Or
The thoughts racing
Through my mind!
For
The nurse is getting ready
To push needles
Into my mother’s veins
The surgeon
Is gathering his tools
To cut on the body
That once gave me life
That held me for 9 months
Felt me kick inside it!
Then comes
The weeks of
Radiation waves
Burns and blisters
My mother’s skin tissue
Will look like it was dipped
In nuclear run off
From Chernobyl
Or Fukushima
She will feel like
A thousand ants are
Crawling and biting
Under her skin
And
A thousand Bees
Stinging its surface!
Whatever the future
Might be?
My mother
Will suffer
And
There is nothing
I can do to stop it!
Helpless
I feel as I wait
As she waits
As we all wait
Not knowing
What will come?
Yet
At the same time
Knowing with all certainty
What eventually will!
None of this is an easy place
To be!
Not for her
Not for me
But
Sometimes the tools
You need
Tool survive the hard times
Are right in front of you
You just have to look!
Three weeks before my mother
Was diagnosed
I ordered
Susan Sontag’s Masterpiece
“Illness As Metaphor”
The book arrived two days
After
My mother told me
She was ill
The irony in this
Was not lost on me
For
My mother
Was living
With death living off her
She was the host
It was the unwelcome guest
She never knew was there!
Weeks earlier
One night
Flipping through channels
I came across
A documentary on Susan Sontag
Her own battle with cancer
And
The book she wrote about
This horrible disease
I was taken by Sontag’s fight
Her will
To beat impossible odds
So
I ordered her book
Not knowing at the time
It was a tool
Sent by the Gods
By angels
By the Stars
By the universe
Words to give me guidance
Words to hold onto
While holding my mother
And
Facing each day
I have
With her!
Seeing each moment
As precious moments
That undoubtedly
One day will end
But for now to
Cherish these
Blocks of time
That are given to me!
For
We only have so many days
In this world
And
We have even less
With the ones
Who’ve brought us into it!
From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave
