Brian’sPoems

A Diagnosis

I told her calmly
to go ahead and cry,
that there is no shame
in her sadness and shock,
even though I know
the tremendous effort
in which I am engaged
to hold back my own tears.

The sky outside is painted
with pink and blue pastels,
but our lives within
are now painted
with this new sadness.

Nothing seems quite the same
after a diagnosis of cancer,
whether it be your own
or that of a loved one.

There are obvious contrasts in life,
yet none more stark
than night and day,
than living and dead.

What else clears away
all the pretense and utter bullshit
like a personal confrontation
with our own mortality?

...
Now that I’m awake,
how clearly I can see
the fireman in my head rushing
to put out the flames,
to squelch the pain,
and to extinguish
the smoldering sadness.

I want to fix everything,
especially my own impotence,
which ought to give me
some measure of solace in God,
but only accentuates my weakness
within the world of men.

So today I pray,
and I wait patiently
while holding firmly
the tensions of my life,
and of those lives
intersecting mine.

I am opening,
opening,
forever opening
my heart and soul
to the mysteries of love,
and to the infinite possibilities
I can still scarcely imagine.