Entry for Tuesday, November 28, 2006 - In the Middle

I found this lovely poem on the Writer's Almanac.  Warren started another series of his chemo today.  He seems to have more range of motion in his arm.  They want him to take at least another 5 days of antibiotics even though they never found any infectious agents.  I kind of was pushing the doctors today on why they won't admit that it "could" be the shots but I didn't make much headway.  Later I said to one of the nurses "If it looks like a horse, and smells like a horse and eats oats like a horse, its a horse".  The doctors would like to have it remain a mystery.  One said, "I don't have a crystal ball."  So I said, "Well, I do, but that's another story."  One then said "Can I make an appointment with you?"  Then another one said "Maybe we should be studying you."  And I thought, "Maybe someday you will." :-)

Poem: "In the Middle" by Barbara Crooker, from Yarrow. © 1998

In the Middle



of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,

struggling for balance, juggling time.

The mantle clock that was my grandfather's

has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time

to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,

the chimes don't ring. One day you look out the window,

green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,

and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,

our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn

again how to love, between morning's quick coffee

and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,

mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies

twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;

his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,

Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging

us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,

sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh

of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up

in love, running out of time.