Coping with Illness and Dying

Coping  with Illness and Dying

 

When we’re sick and full of woes

And fighting our despair,

Will we think of better times –

And burdens better bear?

 

Or will such memories be lost –

Or if remembered, then

Be yet more grief, because we know

We won’t be well again?

 

Some bear a grievous illness lightly,

Others groan at colds.

A patient’s truly patient, while

Another only scolds.

 

We see a woman, ailing, tend

Her husband, though she sinks –

And still, her spouse yet more demands –

And of her, rarely thinks...

 

How easy it might be to judge

Another, yet we know

That there are depths we cannot plumb,

Beneath the storms that blow.

 

And yet, it’s true – that qualities

We nurture, over years,

Express themselves, for all to see,

When mortal ending nears.

2013 December 29^th, Sun., 6:08 pm 

2^nd floor, McDonald’s Restaurant  

86^th Street and 20^th Avenue 

Bensonhurst, Brooklyn

   

Sunshine Might Be Coming By

  
Sunshine Might Be Coming By

    

The skies are gray, with drizzling rain.

The cold that’s left will come again.

And that’s the bane of northern climes

That all must bear – though some complain.

Yet one, who lives in tropic lands

With palm-trees tall and coral sands,

Of summer’s sweltering heat complains

And cooler temperatures demands.

I wonder, whether there’s a clime

That’s cool enough in wintertime

And pleasant still in summers too.

So wondering, I might end my rhyme.

But I have learned there’s such a place

That’s suited to the human race,

Where seasons all are temperate –

As climates go, a shining ace.

I sometimes, in my dreams, ascend

To where it seems that spring won’t end,

Where in December flowers bloom,

On which the hummingbirds depend.

But that is there and I am here,

With drizzling rain – but spirit sere,

With winter’s cold about to surge,

And springtime’s blooming far from near.

So I can either sit and mope

Or with the gray and drizzling cope –

Of season’s cruelties complain

Or shrug – and for some sunshine hope.

On venturing in the rain, I spy

A patch of blue in the cloudy sky.

And so I smile.  I’ve learned to flow –

And sunshine might be coming by.

2013 December 23^rd, Mon. 
Brooklyn, New York