There are days when I forget I have cancer,
when I forget the crippling power
of the unknown variables freed from the shroud of ignorance,
and begin to move forward,
days when I forget that my best laid plans
are nothing but chaff spilled from a child's hands
awaiting the next strong gust,
days when the competitive edge in me gnaws
at my restraints, ears flicking at the passage of time,
straining to be released.
And then there are days like this:
to hear your cancer has resurfaced,
after what you have done, in spite of the statistic
one percent survival--
to hear a man so full of love and laughter,
kindness, gentleness,
an embrace sure as a stallion's neck,
has not slipped the bridle of this cursed disease.
This is how the early rulers
must have felt looking over the plains
sprawled out before their kingdoms,
at the glowing dots of beacon fires
lighting one, by one, slowly, each brighter than the last,
the time lapse between each flame reducing,
and then all at once, the mountainside
bursting aflame, leading straight to the gates,
the last a scorching inferno exploding
in oil and dry kindling,
bearing the news that an ally,
after much battle,
is near overrun
and calls for aid.
It must have still'd even the bravest heart,
to know even as one has prepared,
stored, trained, envisioned--
even as one strived to break free the divination,
that even as one's fallow land has,
after much transudation and lamentation,
ripened with burgeoning wheat,
another's nation is smoldering under the razing of its land.
They must have looked upon
labor of their fields,
upon the stones of their fortitudes,
doubled the guard,
donned their armor,
steeled the fear piercing their viscera,
while praying that the plea was not
an omen.
