Everyone's counting, measuring, recording,
life being long lists and statistics.
By accident I turned, I turned
into a driveway, an accidental turning,
ninety degrees, turning my life.
Seeking a friend's home I found
instead my doctor's house- among things,
he measures heart beats, blood pressure,
blood sugar, and fatigues. I am exhausted.
We met accidentally for moments
in which he looks, head cocking to a side,
"How are you feeling?" An appointment was made.
The inching already begun became noticeable.
Some say there are no accidental turnings,
all turns measured in mortality.
It became a time of machines testing, defining.
It became a time of great tentacled, tabled, tracked machines.
Machines that towered mute above me
or else crouched gurney-side winking digital,
operated by technicians and doctors that seemed,
at moments, to be no more than jolly extensions
of closed circuit probings and measured evaluations.
The machines at peace in compassion and wisdom;
compassion, in that they serve all equally;
wisdom, in that they know their limited use.
A heavy metal table where I huddled, my loins shivering scuddy,
subject to technicians administering an enema-
Barium enema- Great Barium Reef, I think,
hysterical for humor and denial of condition.
An x-ray vision on a black and white monitor,
watching my colon, an old curled caterpillar,
slowly fill with night spewed slow motion.
The cavity filled, x-rays taken with me
in desperate beefcake poses, only moving inches,
holding my breath as told then being told to breathe.
Then holding my breath then turning just an inch again.
A shadow, something darker than night is seen-
could be scar tissue, a tumor, could be anything:
such as death in residence in an intestine.
Another measuring procedure, a sigmoidoscopy.
Another room, another table, another huddling,
obeying, moving slightly thus and so,
staring at a monitor, this in peacock color,
feeling, ignominiously, a tube inserted up my anus,
watching a camera and lights travel up my colon,
the meat red glistening walls a Disney sci-fi set-
"That's normal," the technician-doctor voice,
"That's normal," and, "That," stopping our exploration,
taking pictures after careful focusing, "That is not normal."
"That?" I ask, with no voice, a thin white breath,
"That's it," he says matter-of-factly.
I stare at a malevolent rosebudding.
I may be looking at my monitor death.
After, dressed, stunned, sitting gingerly,
conscious that I've moved, that there is a line,
a separation of space between me and others-
I try my last hope in an effort to move back.
"What are the chances it is benign?"
The doctor looks at me stamped, open,
an inevitable face, watchful eyes-
"It is not benign," he enunciates, "I'll risk my
professional standing, it is not benign.
You will need major surgery. It is not benign."
I am numb, something wild in me growing to my doom.
It becomes a time of havoc, of balefires,
of battlement shoutings, of half-hidden figures
withdrawing around dark corners, of limited
sight and sense, of sensible suggestions,
of insinuating fear: I am to be cut,
portions of me to be removed, analyzed,
then burned- something of me is to be smoke.
A time of awakening late at night
to whisper, say, hear the words- I have cancer,
I have cancer of the colon cancer I have cancer,
said breathy and quick over and over.
There is so much to read and sign, so much
to hear and try to comprehend, so many acts
that may be final; I want to say to my wife:
no matter what I'll find you. I don't. I smile.
The day rushes at me, us, I am prepped--
shaved and sterilized. I am in a tiled hall
hearing sounds, seeing lights, lying on a gurney.
Alone, I breathe, no two breaths alike.
Too soon they are ready, my breath is short, shallow.
The operating room is brilliant metal and tile.
It seems so cold, the staff so friendly and informal.
busy about their jobs- it is just a work place
for them, I think- a fateful place for me.
The surgeon is shy, tall, courtly, quiet.
I want to say something memorable. I can't.
I am afraid. Someone is jabbing my arm,
having difficulty finding a vein. I want to be
of assistance- that is the last thing I remember.
Then a moment when my faith, confidence, and resolve break-
in the Recovery Room which I did not recognize-
more a metallic cold hell with fires turned
to an awful achieving light that burns into my flesh
as a generous unforgiving pain, pain and voices
telling me in patient enunciation to breathe,
that I was not breathing- hear me Donald?-
My head turns too easily, I have no axis,
my head lolls through time,
through civilizations of pain.
My head rolls slowly toward death. Breathe. To know
the ultimate question is so tempting, breathe,
take a good breath, Donald, that's it. My head
turns an inch to see a woman with a wonderful smile.
She is by my ear, leaning on an elbow. In first seeing,
I know her entire life. To know and know I know.
I breathe. It so aches, this living.
My wife is suddenly there, talking of breathing;
her hands, her nails, clean and trim, making me think
of Amish women in bonnets doing good breathing.
I giggle and drift with Amish nails. Breathe.
I clutch her simple gift fingers hearing-breathe.
I am taken to a room and left with night lights.
I lie awake drug dreaming. I throb. Nurses and aides come and go.
I am amazed at their everyday beauty, at the life curves and planes.
I throb, the pain leisurely spreading. King pain,
life pain. I will live, I will know. I will be afraid.
Finally dawn coming, first day of cancer recovery,
first day of back to not knowing. The fear is not that I'll die,
but live, live with the illumination of the shadow self,
self that hides from the knowing and the deed.
I inch up a ladder of pain to sit giddy,
look out a reflecting widow to see
the tragic elegant reach of a cypress branch;
in a sepia dawn light, a bird, a thrush,
a Hermit thrush, hops outside my window.
We look at one another, wonder reflected in the glass.
The Hermit poses atop a mini-boulder, stands
in subdued beauty for a long time, staring.
I breathe shallow and watch. We both are so still.
Away, catching the first morning sun, so slanting,
a sprinkler starts stuttering, arcing long jets of crinkling tinfoil.
Is everything so electric, so unbearably beautiful?
Slowly, staring, breathing, listening, I recover.
A hollow shaft of delicate glass, I begin walking.
I practice daily, becoming stronger, an end in mind.
There is a place I know I want to go.
A mountain meadow full of tall grass.
Harding grass- Phalaris Aquatica, native to Europe.
I want to go there and take everyone.
Everyone I've ever seen or known or loved.
Everyone, all of them, and we'll take our time.
The hike is steep and long and the young
and the impatient will wait for the old and for me.
The dead will be carried tenderly in memory.
We will hike, we will get to that meadow
where the grass is awned waist high.
I will wade, a dot, one for so many.
I will wade legless to a knoll, the grass making
an important crunch sound underfoot,
then whispering whips around my thighs
as I move slowly to find a spot to stand.
The grass has a sun blasted beige color
tinged with a subtle mauve seen far off.
There I will stand and watch the wind.
I want to watch it coming across,
bending the tall grass in a sheen.
I want to watch it approach everywhere near,
scattering awn in a pungent promise,
I want to see it be with me
then turn and watch it disappear
to the horizon, to the sky.
I want to watch it, I want to watch it,
I want to watch it by the inches.
Copyright 1996 by Donald Marsh
You may contact the author with comments at marsh@cruzio.com
