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After cancer, once remission has been achieved, there are survivorhood issues. This poem opens up the topic of survivorhood. This page contains a link to archived blog entries dealing with life after cancer. With this disease, the story continues ... and continues ...
This poem called SURVIVORHOOD is one of the poems in the cancer poems section of the Genghis Lotus Poetry Collection which is hosted at two locations, genghislotus.com and zenvirus.com/genghislotus/. This poem is by Hugh Cook, author of the medical memoir Cancer Patient, the full text of which is available to read for free online. |
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Listening to the sunlight We can hear the soft quick pulse of flowers Reminding us (And life amidst whiteness needs reminders) That the blood of daffodils is liquid. Flowers by their nature Must fear the scissors. There is no helping it. Sitting in my hospital bed I can hear the clocks in scalpels Hissing, steaming, Itching for incision. Natural bullyworks: Clocks. Time is the great vivisector, Actual, potential, ongoing: An unavoidable Crunch-clouter. But I will outlast at least this hourglass. Fingers crossed. It is no use yearning To be illicitly immortal. The heart is keyed to terminate And slowing the heartbeat Will not extend the pulse. Still, The hour has fragrance, The week has taste, And beyond the lean corroded catwalk, Beyond the dry hinge of the future, The smiles of more partitions may await. Having survived the city of needles, Having made the passage From the long darkness to an approximation of light, I remain a process of countdowns. Explicitly fatal. Biology is destiny, Forced and predicted: A gel of molecules upon a bony frame Designed to diveboard, Designed, in the final analysis, for dissolution. The endpoint will come, one day. Various deaths can be imagined. The body A bleeding sponge Racked dry. The body ... But you have your own holocausts, And have no particular need for mine. The truth is this: The angel's kiss that breathed me into life Was freighted with my funeral. But even so There is sunlight sufficient This day, week, month, year For the construction of a life: Sustainable. At least within the limits of the living minutes. |
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May be photocopied for classroom use |
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This cancer poem touches on the subject of survivorhood. A blog dealing with life after cancer can be accessed at the link below:
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