"Don't worry, Mother Nature will take care of herself,"
my mother said.
And She has,
melting the river
into a surprisingly dark, gleaming scythe,
curving with the town's reflection on her back,
rippling silently after months of frozen, white quiet.

I listened to the thaw for weeks.
Crackling ice sounds like breaking plastic,
alternated with deep snaps from the river's bottom,
and the shatter of tiny glass pockets along her edge.

Gulls stand individually in the slush
and in crowds facing one way
in the cold.
They fish in between the black lines
of the cracked ice.

So I wait for you Ann
and your mixed up body.
Wet lungs,
cell walls weakened with no boundaries.
(I saw a black flood last night in a dream -
it was like the tsunami pictures on the news.
You were there too,
your light blue eyes,
cobalt and bulging -
your limbs and your hands swollen,
your face like a moon.)

How does Nature choose to extinguish
the light of your cells,
so bright still
after years of fighting?
And in what order?

Does She blow out your light
in random gusts,
shutting you down capriciously?
A hand here, a limb there,
Jumbling your mind,
And what happened to your voice?
(I called you on the phone this week, "Ann, Ann do you hear me?"
After a silence you said, faintly and carefully, "Yeah, I'm here.")

Or does She choose
a highly organized design
with a cascading effect?
Destroying your lymphocytes first,
then rushing in through your body's broken gateway,
with greedy, small, dark diseased cells –
flooding your heart,
your lungs,
your throat,
your mind,
your mouth,
until you
pass naturally
into a place
I can not go.

– Charlotte Chamberlain

© 2008

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jbf@fergus.com
Revised 4/6/2008