"Ignorance is the parent of fear"
- Herman Melville
Moby-Dick or, The Whale
Schauflerized
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Peace & Blessings!
"My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."
-Matthew 26:38
Thought for the
Month
POEM OF THE MONTH
Memory Now
(for families
rattled by cancer)
Street lights streak
across; cutting
scraping my eyes.
First night without you,
time took you
away. A better place.
Quickly, you flew into my life.
Six months, like a bullet,
As if yesterday doctors told us.
The news shocked the heart;
caked the insides
like your cancer.
“God has the final word!”
we injected those heated syllables,
sliced them into the surgeons’ ears.
Their hearts refused to hear;
empty souls, cold & calculating;
sterile; pride-full; spewing facts, data, & research.
Six months we took turns
praying, bathing, reading, feeding
believing in miracles.
Miracles, my beloved,
don’t always hold the form,
the pretty packaging we fancy.
“Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy,”
that last night, like sparks in the sky,
we whispered, we chanted, we meditated.
God heard and had the final word--
not our word; our plea--
the vomit; the bile.
Cancer did not overtake you
like the serpent in the shadows
like how the darkness tricks the mind.
You told us God was calling
that freedom was ringing
that angels were singing.
We fought for you, for us; for an extra helping,
for more time, like sand groping,
clutching the slick sides that hold but an hour in glass.
You taught us to submit
humble the heart
when desire wants to set us on fire.
The stars are all hiding
the phone has stopped ringing
but, I still hear you singing.
First night without you
but, the seeds you fought to sow
will forever allow us to grow.
- Ryan Schaufler/June 29, 2011
For Lori & Family
In Memory of Jeanne H. Woodall
