Someday-Dying

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  • Someday

    Poem Commentary

    There are some who call themselves Christians and consider themselves to be followers of Jesus who judge me qute harshly over some of my poems, with hate in their hearts. Some of them have an absolute faith and they have no idea what despair really can be. In any case, they have no compassion for it. They look at the doubts and fears that form the basis of despair as weakness or even outright evil; and, smugly wrapped up in their self-righteousness, they condemn me, as they do others. But Jesus felt despair, as when in the Garden Jesus prayed to God, if it were possible, to "let this cup pass from me." Jesus's deepest and darkest despair was in his cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" That desperate feeling of being abandoned or forsaken was total despair. So I believe that, while certain people who claim to follow Jesus may judge me harshly and with hate, Jesus himself does not. They may not understand despair; but Jesus does.

    Someday-Dying


    Someday-dying is what I used to do.

    It used to be the only kind of dying that I personally knew.

    I remember it well: it was a weak and tepid kind of dying;

    Not a great deal of despair, no great big fear, hardly ever any crying.

    Just something called angst: existential unease; a sad feeling,

    Felt every now and then, for this Scheme of Things with which we’re dealing.

    I sure wish I could go back to simple, universally shared, someday-dying.

    So much better than what I’ve got now; it’s very hard to deal with this,

    Although I’m really trying. I’ve lost some glister from my life-loving happiness;

    And sadness, sorrow, fear, despair--even sometimes terror and horror—rise--

    Daily, nightly, sometimes hourly--flooding in my heart, and filling up my eyes.

    For what I have now is knowing how I will almost certainly die.

    Barring an unlikely accident to take me out first,

    My death will be fearful--increasingly debilitating--in pain and tearful sorrow.

    And still I hear the Job’s comforters say: “Everybody has to go, you know.

    Everybody is dying.  Everybody has to go some time.  We’re all born dying.” 

    I used to have that same kind of dying.  Even then I often had to wonder why.

    Why anybody should ever have to die.  But some-time dying leaves the feel

    Of good future life in your heart, the gleam of a new bright tomorrow.

    Someday-dying leaves in place the dream of dying in painless peace--

    And the dream is real.

    When I dream of painless-peace dying, it is a fantasy that cannot come true.

    Even the least bad cancer is still bad. 

    Late-stage cancer can make you sad and drive you mad.

    My kind of cancer lets you live a few more years,

    As it slowly but surely becomes a mediaeval torturer.

    What I have now is knowing how I am almost certainly going to die.

    And a shortened shine of time.  I no longer have nebulous someday-dying.

    I have far-too-soon-day dying.  Too soon.  And terribly bad.

    I face a dying future of torturous final time, one of the worst.

    Which fixes fear and fright to day and night--

    Pulse-beats of life, rapid rhythm of time—fast--and faster--flying.

    How I wish this had not happened to me, to be caught in this spider-web;

    To have to feel the shaking strands, as the spider races down the web to me.

    How I wish I could go back to simple, universally shared, someday-dying.



    Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
    aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
    Written on Wednesday, December 15, 2010  11:10 am
    Temperature: 60 degrees F.  Humidity: 44%  Forecast: overcast
    Copyright © 2011 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved

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    abuelita1 commented on Someday-Dying

    12-15-2010

    My wings are spread out if you ever feel the need to rest! love.....Super Angel

    abuelita1 commented on Someday-Dying

    12-15-2010

    I'm glad you are able to share your feelings, Michael. My prayers are with you, as always. Love........Super Angel

    Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.

    Plato (BC 427-BC 347) Greek philosopher.

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