Deirdre Neilen, PhD: Poets have a way of finding the truth of an experience, even in the seemingly quiet, undramatic moments of illness. Mary Beth O'Connor from Ithaca, New York, recalls the moments of sitting vigil with a friend who can no longer communicate in her beautiful poem "what is time to her?"
time that passes so slow
for us visitors
reading to her, holding
her hand, longing for her
to open her eyes,
to smile at us, trying
to coax her back ...
maybe all those months
seemingly sleeping, she's been
busy beyond interruption
weaving a shroud
like in the fairy tale
getting ready
the way creatures
know how to prepare
nests, store black walnuts
learn to fly ...
and we, so well-meaning
and bereft, cannot seem
to just let her
David Dixon is a physician and poet from North Carolina who describes the ache of sitting with a parent who is slowly dying, in his poem 'Still Life with Dad and Shade Tree."
After he's gone, what is it we keep?
What is it we scoop and carry like apples
in apron folds
clutched tightly to a chest?
And where would we even store
such a harvest? For surely
it's written somewhere that
both the plucked and the fallen
are gathered, one bushel at the time,
then taken to the same prepared places
of light and laughter. Sorted by size,
separate from the rotten fruit
so they don't spoil the lot,
hidden in cool cellars.
Such a tasty, sweet metaphor for memory,
is what I think,
even as there is still an answer on the phone,
still the welcome of your crooked hug
in the doorway,
still no idea what I'm missing:
no better than half-a-peck
of pretense,
trying to write this poem
as we sit here together.
Waiting.
