~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Breathe
for Bill in the late stages of ALS

1)

feel the air
thin and clear or
thick and humid
hot, dry, cold, or sharp
feel the air drawn in
through mouth or nose
silently or snoring
calmly or hiccupping,
feel air
with each breath
a life
each life
an exchange
of oxygen and
carbon dioxide,
this breath is easy
and has been
for nearly fifty
years, each breath
so normal, so
(in)consequential
sequentially drawing
in of air slowly
or in gasps
carries your life
without struggle

but for Bill
each wheeze
of the BiPAP
machine
regular and forced
through clear
plastic tube
and mask each
breath, a life
each life, a breath
feel the air
thin and clear
thick, humid, dry
cold or sharp
feel

breathe

feel

life

2)

water
flows in hollows
finding every crevice
swirling to pool
and form new streams
that flow
into marshes
this spring so wet
and cold, the earth
shows its aspiration
the water cycle
sun on green
and mud

water flows
in hollow and morass
the earth’s
respiration
renews
in gurgle and glob
this life

in the body
blood circulates
through hollow
arteries, capillaries
and veins, red
white and blue blood
as long as the heart
still pumps
electric flashes
circulate through nerves
short circuit
in arms, legs, lips
tongue, esophagus
and diaphragm
no longer pump
and thrill
on their own
to the joy of work
or sleep
the pulsing
cycles of life


3)

hear the air
flat or round
calm or harsh in
words of love
or anger
roll effortlessly
off the tongue
but for Bill
every word
a shape carved
in air, captured
with a gasp and
the uncooperative
scythe and plow of
iron lips and tongue
each breath
a word, each
word, a life

in light
in the sun
bathing the farm
warming the earth
and cows
glancing off
the water in
the pond he built
with the tractor
the geese have flown
yet the wild goose
returns
every morning
in bright sun
or rain
the pear tree
bursts into blossom
into dream
where every word
is a prayer
rolling off the tongue
an effortless
chant, a song,
a hymn
to life
to light
to the air

feel it
dry or humid
icy or searing hot
feel every breath
to never forget
this gift

Ash Wednesday
for Jane

Olive-green cedar waxwings,
brushed with red tips and black eyeliner,
form a stark contrast against the brilliant
blue morning sky as they feed on berries
in the bare branches of your dogwood.

This after weeks of heavy rain
and dark skies, when we haven’t
seen you letting the dogs out or
keeping watch over the neighbors
on Fourth street from your porch.

We don’t yet know that you lie
in a hospital bed, that the cancer
has recurred, followed by a stroke.
Your daughters haven’t told us
you’ll be able to come home to die.

How can we know that you will miss
the even darker days to come, the news
of global pandemic and our own social
distancing, when neighbors will only talk
over the fence or wave from the road.

How can we know, in the midst of it all,
the wren will still belt out his love song
from atop a water oak’s broken crown
or that fleabane and butterweed
will still bloom in profusion
in every spring ditch and field.

Cancer Root

The tumor takes root, like a seed germinating beneath
the soil, unnoticed and cryptic until it sprouts, yet unlike
the seed, does not issue life, but destruction to the organism.
It breeds aberrance and becomes a black hole, feeding
on the matter, the hope, the life, the energies around it.

So unlike the unassuming white flower that bears its name,
a quiet beauty, parasitic, yes, but hardly fatal, a sign of spring
and of renewal, a hopeful blossom nourished by the roots
of sunflower or burdock, prefiguring their showy blooms,
yet marked, like Cain, by an inescapable name.

The flower, when uncovered in a meadow or wood,
is a revelation; the tumor, when discovered in the tissue
of breast or liver or bone, is a sentence, now not always
to death, but to a new life of treatment, a new label
of survivor for however long that term will last.