Pulse

I want to walk down just the right path,
To stir up and smell just the right pungent leaves.
I want to lie along the creeks edge,
To cover the massive root of the sycamore tree
With my whole body.
I want to live,
To pulse and soak,
To catch the sun in the sparkle of a water pool
And let it all the way in.
I want to find the smooth rock,
The striped mushroom,
The magic golden leaf.


Orchid

Orchids grow in trees
Normally
Sipping the rain
From rivulets in bark.
But potted here with me,
It counts on Sundays,
My memory,
And three ice cubes.

It came to me in April
From the hands of a frightened friend
As I reclined wounded and wombless,
Torn and swollen eyed.
It appeared to me as all living things did then,
Alien and oddly alive in it's full bloom.

It is October now.
I stand at its sunny window,
Brush away its last fallen bloom,
Cut its two bare stalks
And believe what I am told:
A new stem will grow,
It will bloom again.


Three Legs

I've seen her for a year now,
Grazing with the others,
One front leg bent,
She lets it bear no weight.

I saw her in the spring
As I sat broken bodied,
A brand new fawn
Crying to her
As she limped away.
I turned too
And nursed my own pain.

May moved into June,
I saw her again,
Not one but two fawns
Chasing,
Playing
As she grazed on three legs.


Seriously

If someone had taken me seriously,
I would have taken myself seriously.
If someone had taken me seriously,
I would have opened with confidence into everything.

If someone had taken me seriously,
I would have taken myself seriously.
I did not take myself seriously
And have lived inadequate in comparison
To my seriously taken self.


August 5, 2012,  Journal Entry

I realize today that I have turned my body over to treatment,
To doctors, nurses, technicians, chemo drugs, and linear accelerators.
I show up when and where I am told.

I have lost my sense of dignity and strength.
I hardly make anything new happen.
I have lost my sense of self-possession.
I am weary and a nap will not make it better.
I awake each day to loss and more loss.
I am in despair that is beyond consolation.
I am just holding on.


This is a Very Aggressive Cancer

Nothing is mine,
This house I live in,
That car I drive,
The bed I sit upon.
No more my.
This is a very aggressive cancer.


.....Julia Livingston