All the Way with Part Way

My heart opens up to the universe with love.
Oh, my universe!  My world! Crush me like a bug--but I feel love for you still.
It must be so.  The cogs of the great machine must turn.
The light that first shined into my eyes, and awoke my love of light;
And the first word that I ever heard, that awoke in my ears
A love of language and learning and love;
And all the flowing days that have bloomed and become my years--
Guided and gardened by my first and best and most-loved teacher:
My loving, giving, much-missed mother--
Lit up my life of joys and tears.
Each day built me up a bit; but now each day takes a bite.
My time that I have loved and lived has carried me
Only part-way to the last mark.
I have several large questiions; but I have found only one sure answer.
No answer came to me from the stars in the night sky.
But I found one answer only; and it came up out of my own heart.
That whenever I see the day-time sky
With sun-brightened blue and luminous white clouds;
Or in the night sky, the soft lighting moon--
A circle and cycle of light--
Or the stars, pin-points and sand-grains of light,
Sprinkled and scattered across the endless night:
The universe beams beauty at me.
Here on this earth of beauty--this beautiful life-filled earth--
Rich with its own blue, the seas--and green--
Blue oceans and green seas--and green plants that taste the sun,
And bring starlight into life for everyone.
How can this world of so much beauty have something in it like cancer?
I have no way of knowing, no faculty to find out that.
But to the question of what to do, I still have my own heart's answer:
To treasure every magical living breath.
To love even an apparently unloving, uncaring universe.
To embrace life with love; and to love the world where I was given birth.
To love life to the last.
To love my hours, even as all my flowers fall into earth.
Sometimes I think my life does not matter.
That it did not matter.
But then I feel deeply that my life ought to matter.
And I know: that if it truly ought to matter,
Then surely that is also a way of actually mattering.
An end soon to all my writing.
Prose, poetry, verse.
Soon I will smile my last smile of love to the world that made and breaks me.
My last smile to the universe.
Things could have been better for me; but they could have been worse.
Whether or not, in the end, it loves me--whatever has been, and whatever will be--
I love the world. 
I love life. 
I love myself.
I love my fellow and sister people. 
I care about animals. 
I love the universe.
Full of regrets, with increasing pain and fear and sorrow,
I still have things to be glad for and to enjoy:
I, miracle--I, wonderful magic:
A breathing, living, soul-filled shape of earthen sod.
I treasure every day--I take today--and I always hope to have one more tomorrow.
Plagued with questions and doubts: Still I am, now--and I hope to be, forever--
Grateful to God.


Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Written on Saturday, December 25, 2010  2:31 pm PST
Temperature: 57 degrees F.  Humidity: 45%  Forecast: overcast
Copyright (C) 2010 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved