Left-Handed Lurker
My left hand stutters and there is a monster
lurking just behind tomorrow or the next.
I know him well and he has been here,
on my left shoulder, whispering dire warnings
about how he can own half of me again.
He speaks of stealing my reason for being,
my expressions of love for the word,
my pitiful attempts at prioritizing
all manners of passions that the world
have served me in order that I might grow
fat and full of feelings on.
I could live forever in my mind, but not fully so,
for I have need to sing my song to the world,
from mountains of white papers, red letter,
black punctuation marks, sometimes misplaced,
words, scrambling to make sense of it all.
But that would not ever be enough. My psyche
does not appreciate itself enough. It already survived
un-blessed moments. I have need to reach back
to put a light to path others may wander
on their own dark nights. It is not the ‘end-
all’ to have simply broken through hard ground
myself and revel in not having to share some light.
What flower ever found itself being smiled at by the sun
and enjoy being the only blossom in the nearby garden.
Perhaps that is why single ones stretch so and grow taller
than is expected. They are trying to check their faith
that others have’ made it’ too and that ‘making it’ was a blessing.
The ogre, and the angst of it, flick a place on top of my head,
just under the thin bone that was boled up the last time
he attempted to escape. Pushing him down did not cure
him of his evil doings, it merely caged him for another moment.
I know he is there, waiting to slather over my last words
and to wriggle gleefully at having eaten my last love.
Today is “D” day. January 28, 1982, I had a brain bleed and was thrown into left side paralysis. You would not know it to see me, but there are hints the monster is still there. He never lets me forget how thin the veil is. Every year, if I make it past this, I can begin to exhale slowly…I have the month of March to make it through.
The headache started about 10 am and the “pop” came at about 6:26 PM. I lost three months, the ability to move my left side, and many memories that have taken these 25 years to retrieve. I am grateful I was young and had not damaged any cells that my brain needed to do the job the old ones did for me. They were a little confused, though, because some of the cells had a mind of their own. They show that in my typing and my ability to do triple gainers over peripheral things most would have seen. When I am tired, they show their true colors in the slight drag and droop. I have lived on borrowed time and know that. I have spent every day being grateful to wake up and every night saying a silent prayer I had done enough ‘Good’ that day to be allowed to stay another night. I am always mindful that the monster is still there, more so as the body and mind naturally slow down. My fear drives me to write reams of poems…to get it said… “for no other reason but for this…that I have not lived this life as if a dream.” (R. Hooker)
A remarkable penning that comes from a place that once visited, always remains as that monster silently lurking. I have visited that place myself, although I didn’t travel the same path to that dark and lonely destination.
I think we all, at this point in our lives, have those ogres that sit on our shoulders and warn us of their presence. They are not visible to others, but they perhaps cause us to stretch up flower-like to the light, and to share that light with the others peering up through the hard ground…
So let us stretch like that lone sunflower seeking the sun and place our colourful petals within view of those fowers that fear to poke their heads above the soil.
Carol
Thank you, Carol. I woudl be in any garden, any time with you. You are such a sweet and smiling sacred soul.
The universe gave you a slight problem and then followed that
with twenty-five years of wondrous living…so many things seen,
perceived, created, lived, done. That would be a good sign.
An asteroid might hit the earth again some day, but one need
not lose sleep over the thought of that, and one whose life has
been lived to the very best of one’s ability need not fear the
future, either. The future writes itself each milli-second, and
it is not a dream-state but a state realized, wherein the poet
moves and has made her mark which is not to be erased.
All things are in season, and yes some flowers grow taller,
in their aloneness, and I found one such flower while fishing
one year. It stoof out, maybe eight feet in height. One could
not help but notice and recall it many years later. The universe
creates such memory-inducing realities, with imprints made
on the minds of those who will always remember, even those
who will come after, with the imprint in their cells also.
It is likely fair to say that special flower I came upon those
many years ago, in the middle of the woods, was alone and
may not have cared for that aloneness, and yet it was its
destiny to be there, as it was, and how lucky I was to chance
upon it!
Richard
Let us then, be a bunch of tall standing flowers in the grandeur of life. Let us be that one flower, in descecrated soil that dares to rise in spite of it. Let us be that green shoot of promise in a dreary world. Let us wave and not waver.
Thank you, dear brother, for sharing a small anecdote from the bigness of your world and your understanding of it.