I LIVE IN HOPES

    On the tenth day I rose again...
    at the crack of dawn, ready
    for the ambulance to transport
    me to the distant Church*:

The air in here is caustic:
filled with the outbreath
of my fellow men diseased,
and the terrible sound they make
trying to do that natural thing
of breathing. Just the in and out
of air. But it isn't easy
as it should be, nor is it silent,
and the coughs and wheezes
make me feel like a fraud!
I am put to bed and then
wheeled to the MRI scanner
which hums and traundles
it's radiation greeting.

    I did not elect to be here!
    It all started with bacterial
    pneumonmia last November.
    Now that was actually painful!
    Then   I   found it hard to breath.

So here I am five scans,
three great Churches*,
and seven holy doctors later
submitting myself to their huge
and idolatrious scanner.
Intended to provide the surgeon
with the concise body spot
to insert his biopsy needle...
"There will be no stigmata [scar]"

They assured me.

Lo and behold (I could have told them!)
The 'thing' they seek is gone,
and they are deprived the excuse
to invade my body again.
I feel I have deprived them.
One senses an insatiable search
for something to be wrong...
else they have no purpose.
"Therefore, my dear friends,
flee from idolatry."

I am overcome with gratitude
to the Universe for my fortune.
Not just because the 'thing'
has take leave of my body,
but because I am as a virgin
in a ward full of people
who are suffering in the most
awful way the inability
to take in oxygen - by breath.
I simply have mild COPD:
I trust it will stay mild.
"Blessed be mild men,
for they shall wield the earth."

I live in hopes.

© Griffonner 2024

*see my preface