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

   

Reprieve--II

   
Reprieve – II

It's spring-like weather here in New York City.
Pedestrians open heavy winter coats.
A night of rain has left some curdled clouds,
But elsewhere there's a sky of baby blue.

A seagull sails across – and little birds

Have perched upon a tree.  They tweet and sing.
We watch, at solstice, Nature's sly burlesque –
December strutting like she still was May.

******
  
I'd thought the songbirds all had fled, but now
I wonder where their little nests are hid.
At winter's start, official, this reprieve
Unsettles me.  I can't find rhyming words.

And yet, it's solstice – so this shortest day
Is ending, yielding to the longest night.
A golden sun is sinking in the west
And painting, warm, the walls – as sun does best.

How many days like this has Brooklyn seen,
When winter teases men with show of spring...
But three more months of cold and dark remain,
Till April comes, at last, with true relief.

****** 
    
And if some say, "You're fighting Nature." then
I would reply, "For sure, I've failed to flow.
I wait, impatient, for the days like this.
But you are free to take delight in snow."

For soon enough, we will be blanketed.
And white, pristine, will turn to gray and black.
And some may still be smiling then – at that.
But I'll stay grim until the equinox.

2013 December 21 Sat.
Brooklyn