Gratitude

No preamble this week...


AFFECTION

It was the only time I saw them kiss;
an unrequited kiss farewell.

They never displayed their affection in private,
so the kiss in church stopped my breath.

So intimate, so quiet and tender;
my father lay there accepting, forgiving.

But Mom only wept as she bent over him;
he unable to respond, his lips sown shut.





Atop the Cold and Blustering Tower

The surgeon knows whether a life is saved.
A child of five could hear the heart beat.

So how do you know when you've saved a life?

Mind sparks, neurons fire within a cave of bone,
but no light illuminates the darkness.
The blade of insight and intellect is your scalpel,
and with it you enter the hollows of my eyes,
slicing my mind open ever so gently,
ever so cautiously
with questioning words
peeling back the fatty layers of confusion,
probing the cancer of destroyed Self,
until you become me
and stand on the balcony of my soul
gazing out across the demon-haunted pits,
the angel-hallowed halls
embracing all
equally.

Yet for this operation, I am neither sedated nor numb.
For I too am an instrument of yours...
an instrument in my own healing, my own survival, my own resurrection.
You follow me closely, carefully suturing the wounds of childhood,
of life,
with encouragement, patience, understanding
cutting away infected motivations
amputating the extremes of paralyzing anxiety
until we are out in the world
talking comfortably over a cup of coffee.

But who heals your scars?
Who quiets your fear?
There is no heartbeat calling from afar
telling you everything is fine.
So how do you know when you've saved my life?
You know when I hand you this poem,
You know that on a dark winter's night
on the Tower eaves,
I thought of you
and stepped away from the edge.