rohaiwrimo

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Here are a few things:

1. The first post in quite awhile. I have wandered very little outside my home base since spring, physically. On the other hand, I've been on a great big soul journey, maybe one of the biggest inside trips there is. Okay, Cancer, I get it, no one escapes -- you are going to sequester every single one of us at your ugly party for at least a little while.

2. The cancer log. When you're on this excursion, even as care-taker you're somewhat compelled to write about it, because writing is real good anchoring, relinquishing, sorting, sense-making therapy. Many a blog has been born from cancer. You should write about it, Robyn. Yeah, but I don't want to. I don't know how. I won't.

3. The NANOWRIMO effort. I had just been avowing to my good-night journal how I was not going to write about cancer, when the peeps at the Halloween party asked, what artsy thing is everyone going to do once a day in November? The original nationally sanctioned idea was to start and finish, via so many words a day, a novel within the month of November. But I am not yet a novel writer, and will never be a speed-writer. What could I manage to let be once a day amidst my obsessive revision tendencies? About seventeen syllables. I treasure the tenets of the traditional Haiku, but I treasure narrative even more, so what we end up with is a tale of the cancer journey told via November's 30 tiny poems. Sonnetized, of course, at the end which is not the end.

 1

circle of lawn chairs
white feet fill the kiddie pool
I stand in the shade

2

laughter by the grill
chip bowls, bright salads wilting
in the evening sun

3

finally fireworks
through the tree tops, bright showers,
then into the dark

4

summer pain blossoms
roils the stifling restless nights
demands to be named

5

second opinion
sun-drenched morning leads us chilled
to the scanning room

6

when the call comes you
leave work for the liquor store
vacation begins

7

bound into one chair
binge watch The Newsroom, blinds drawn
against the blue light

8

Monday the surgeon
the Word, the roaring wave comes
crashing into surf

9

churning undertow
grasp at the glitter we'd planned
for this big season

10

Wednesday the needles
bruised bones and organs, dark shots
go public too soon

11

oncologist calls
Friday, our full moon Blackbird
night at the ballpark

12

escape is fleeting
you're checked in, hooked up, basted
in the jargon stew

13

hospital welcome
committee, a brochure for
each poison and pill

14

all night nurses poke
beeping buttons, push lethal
juice, untangle lines

15

rosy dawn in our
drug-strewn kitchen, you panic
clutch me tight, birds chirp

16

first hair sheds below
sunset maple tree portrait
then to the clippers

17

I shake curls across
star-lit lawn, a hundred nicks
befoul your new head

18

port sewn into your
heart -- cyborg in team t-shirt
and fine fedora

19

steroid carousel
cloaks your voice, slams toxic sludge
through mouth nose and pores

20

so many phone calls
so much food delivered though
only the nurse eats

21

weigh drops, bile rises
we cannot hold each other
comfortably in sleep

22

round three: hydration
cannot bring your color back
surgery surprise

23

anniversary
vigil, kisses around the
nasogastric tube

24

week of Swedish fog
lit with guests, green park, ice cream
return to ghost home

25

trace your fresh scars in
the shower, you're paper-thin
without finger tips

26

routine commences
first flora catch fire, rain flicks
the treatment window

27

narcotic glacier
drags down til we cut line, then
drift in the ripples

28

thunder growls in sea
of wind, trees fall, gold leaves swirl
amidst scattered trash

29

fresh imaging -- mere
residue shows so we take
walks, will a finish

30

last colored charms float
from branches; the opened door
now flung from hinges
stoking hearth inside

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 30, 2013 at 5:27 PM

    "demands to be named" indeed.

    so much love from oregon.

    ReplyDelete

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