The world is still so startlingly beautiful, so brimful of precious wonder.
No, that has not changed.  When I see around me a bright circle of sunshine,
It feels as if I were the focus of power divine,
Cutting out a hole from the darkness, as if it were a theater spotlight,
And I, in the center, were the play’s chief actor, the protagonist, the main character—
Somehow, I swear, I sometimes still have that old sense of my God-loved worth.
As if God loved me, with helpful willingness; and as if heaven held me in loving sight,
Guarding me with angels in a circle of light.
I sometimes forget for a little while that my entire life has been ripped asunder.
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Ripped, slashed, hacked, torn—a fate for which I did not dream I could have been born.
There is no word too strong to describe my pain, my fear, my sense of curse.
How can I believe I am loved, when so many of my fellow people have suffered so?
Why should I be spared, when for them no helping power cared to show?
I have books of descriptions of how cancer-eaten bodies have tortured human time,
Taking by slow steps of gross pain the gentlest and best people to a demonic death.
Then, as if life-sustaining respiration were a breathing-in of hell-sparks with every breath,
I contemplate my fate;
And I know I have good ground to fear what is going to happen to me.
Because no matter how special I may feel, I know I am not special: not for real.
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My heart wept heavily over so many other people, suffering with cancer, who are also me.
Each one of them is me; all are me, inside themselves; as if each were the sole soul;
As if each were the sole sacred self: the one; the marvel-making, magical “I am.” 
Scripture speaks the profound truth, that each and every human being,
Comes into being, in the very image of God; and that image is the miracle of “I am.”
Each death, of each world-holding heart, is the cataclysmic collapse of a whole universe.
That stupendous wonder of the self is replicated endlessly; and, ruthlessly, millions die.
Replicated endlessly; but duplicated, never: for each self is unique and unrepeatable; irreplaceable, forever.
No, I’m thinking better of it now; yes, I see; I feel the truth: it is not that I am not special; for truly I am special;
Rather, it is that they--and everyone else lighted by life--are all special, too;
Just as special—sacredly special—just as unique—each one a unique universe—
As the life-lighted world, which is me.  As the life-lighted world, which is you.
We are each supremely special; inside our own hearts, each to each one’s unique inner I:
That universe-generating genius of human life—the magnificent, miraculous, magical self;
The life-hungry heart, feeling fully—and crying loud—even in the face of death: I am!


--Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Copyright © 2010 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved