A POETIC CANCER

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(Copyright © 2013 The Big C and Me)

I read a wonderful poem recently about cancer written by Maryland's poet laureate, Stanley Plumly, in the Los Angeles Times. I am struck by it's lyrical, imaginative and original nature, and am inspired to write some poetry of mine own.

But not today. 
Instead, allow me introduce you to:



CANCER, BY STANLEY PLUMLYMine, I know, started at a distancefive hundred and twenty light-years awayand fell as stardust into my sleeping mouth,yesterday, at birth, or that time when I was tenlying on my back looking up at the clustercalled the Beehive or by its other namein the constellation Cancer,the Crab, able to move its nebulae projectionsbackward and forward, side to side,in the tumor Hippocrates describes as carcinoma,from karkinos, the analogue, in order to showwhat being cancer looks like.Star, therefore, to start,like waking on the best day of your lifeto feel this living and immortal thing inside you.You were in love, you were a saint,you were going to walk the sunlight blessing water,you were almost word for word forever.The crown, the throne, the thorn —now to see the smoke shining in the mirror,the long half dark of dark down the hallway inside it.Now to see what wasn't seen before:the old loved landscape fading from the window,the druid soul within the dying tree,the depth of blue coloring the cornflower,the birthday-ribbon river of a road, and the young man who resembles youopening a door in the half-built houseyou helped your father build,

saying, in your voice, come forth.