“The Sun, The Stars, And The Moon” (a Costa Rican Expression)

That tide of fear floods in today
Which ebbed away round Christmas day
This time there’s faces in that gloom
The faces known around my room:

The face of ‘cleared – recurring doom’;
Of ‘metastatic cancerous womb’;
Of ‘clear below but elsewhere sown’;
Of ‘radiated blood, new grown’;

The face of ‘courage’; ‘self-respect’;
‘Hard fought ’gainst hell’; ‘benign neglect’;
‘Despair within’; ‘by love upheld’;
‘The runners’ jog’; ‘enviro-meld’;

Of ‘preachers’; ‘teachers’; ‘doctors’; ‘moms’;
Of ‘soldiers’; artists’; ‘bankers’; – runs
The gamut of careers and jobs
These people known within great mobs.

It’s going round a lot these days
This cancer-scourge of dad’s last days.
This week young people walk for cash
By candle-light, this scourge to smash.

Today I met a doctor – nice –
He filled me in – not cold as ice
But warm, concerned and thorough too
He saved till last his ‘ bit of news’ –

“It’s not known just what shades these be
Which now appear on scan CT –
I’ll see what chest-and-lungs man says
If best we wait and watch their ways –

“I’ll also check if error is
Recording size – seem a strange biz.
Few days from now I’ll contact you
If this large size needs measure new.”

It’s nice to get now what I asked
For one year back, yet here at last –
I’d not have this if I’d not pressed
The folks in Winnipeg as ‘pest’.

I’d have this town’s reluctant side –
"One scope in year, then three years wide
To five if clear of polyp’s been,
Then after that we mean to wean".

So, T1 was T3 it seems
And now this shaded CT means
This ‘standard follow-up’ I’ve got
Is paying off ’spite early snot.

I walked into this brand new wing
For local treatment of this thing
Nurse gave a sheet of their resource –
Most what I’d found elsewhere (of course).

But hey! It keeps our health costs down
To get med service out of town
We have a building from ‘Cap’ fund
If we could just have programs run.

New meaning comes to “Third John’s lines’
His prayer for health as soul-life finds
And with this health he hoped to see
Each reader have prosperity.

I’d not seen how those thoughts linked up
Health and the wherewithal to sup
But now out here in rural land
‘Health and more cash’ I understand.

Indeed my soul it prospers much
To hell and back it’s been, and such
A journey makes one's soul enriched
But loss of money, sometimes sick.

So maybe entrance route gives clue
Of what I’m now supposed to do –
If I got here to solve my quest
Perhaps it’s time to seek the rest.

As health and wealth took second place
In my impeded stumbling race
Lopsided is my balanced life
As funded by my patient wife.

Enough! I’ve had it with those folks
Who tried to say, “ticket’s revoked”
Because just who you are’s no fit
With us, the ingroup – fool, dim-wit”.

Hey guys, ‘Stu’ is indeed my name
But ‘pid’ is not it’s suffix lame
Though ‘pendous’ God has had in mind
For each and all of human-kind –

And ‘dent’ of course reflects my bent
As one with curiosity sent
Into my world to find things out
And follow up incessant doubt.

But ‘art’ is suffix given to me
So why that name should I now flee
No geographic cure for now
This name – fulfilled by Thee, somehow.

To hell with fear, no time for that
I’ve got a life to lead, and that
May be a day, or two, or more,
Let’s see what else life has in store.

Like Scrooge, awake on Christmas day:
“Hey, boy, pray tell me, time, you say?”
Ah! Time enough if start real soon
To have ‘the sun and stars and moon!’

navigation