I understand sadness

Cancer cells multiplying in the darkness…..

 

Years pass as solidly as stones on an ancient path.
I understand sadness, it is the sky we live under…
Cancer cells multiplying in the darkness
of bone marrow have no purpose.
They neither single out the wicked,
nor allow a cure for someone,
because she is beautiful, intelligent or good.
Cancer is a storm raging furiously around us,
its lightning can strike anywhere, anytime.
Nature is our mother in whom we find shelter.
Hovering above the luxurious grass is the glow
of tipsy-gold buttercups. The baby-blue
air is breathless, only moved
by the beat of the swallow’s wings.
I am thinking about the coming days,
not years anymore. Does gravity warp space and time,
moved by the beat of the swallows
as they hawk midges over the field?
I listen to the constant drone of the hover flies,
the buzz of horseflies, the hum of the bees.
I breathe in that last summer’s beauty as if
it were my last. I take in the bumblebee’s view
across a lake of moving wild flowers,
the meadow brown butterflies  
swarming over the grass, chasing each other …
Eternity would not be long enough, if it was composed
of summer evenings like this…
The pain is resurging with the nausea. Tomorrow 
will be another course of chemo and I think of autumn
descending quickly, as quickly as cancer cells multiply.
The swallows will have gone, a chiffchaff
might pass through, the last summer migrant.
The warm orange glow in the November afternoon,will I still see it?
I want to listen to the sigh of my feet in the frosted grass, 
the shiftless hunting of voles, shrews and mice in the hedges.
I want to be out in the fading light under the stars,
wrapping my coat closer and then fall asleep
under a spangled sky in the starry night of seeping cold.

 
 
 

 

 

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pommer

Hi Yutka,
a beautiful composed piece of writing expressing your feelings so well. I can sympathize, having been suffering for ten years now.Never give up,stay optimistic .there is always hope. thank you for sharing.be lucky, Peter.

slovitt

read this earlier, backspaced my reply. now come back to say that life is beautiful, which you engender in me.

Omecronon12

Wonderfully balanced piece. I’ll return to this one. Thank you!

sweetwater

Beautifully written. So vivid it speaks volumes. sue.

allets

“I understand sadness, it is the sky we live under…” reached deeply. I lost my only daughter to cancer two years ago. – Stella