I’d like to say Happy Birthday to my dad today! This is an older poem. I wrote it after my appendix burst, and I was in the hospital for a few days. I was 25, and I was in a strange state. I was on machines due to some sepsis, and not conscious. I remember one of the first things that I first heard when I began ‘waking up,’ was my dad persistently questioning the nurse about my condition. My dad very much dislikes hospitals. He gets very anxious about going to the doctor. As I woke up, I realized how much of a struggle it must have been to sit there and ‘not know.’ I wrote this poem shortly after I recovered. Today, I dedicate it to him.
Moon of the Barren
“No need to be afraid,”
he tells me- I can barely look at him-
each hour that goes by, I am surprised
at how much life has come and gone out of me-
I dream about an earth without a moon,
One in which the only tides would be from the sun,
The winds would blow faster,
With nothing to slow the planet down-
Hurricane winds would be nothing new,
I close my eyes and imagine how fast
Life would move through me
On such a strange planet.
He sits with me,
Holding my hand, assuring me
I want to live. Any closer,
And I like the earth might experience What it’s like to have the tides ripped Out of its body. Hold something
Too close, and it can be fatal.
He keeps saying, “I love you,”
And it’s hard to believe
That once this man sitting next to me
Felt himself a lifeless, inhospitable world too
It’s hard to believe I was the astroid That hit him hard enough
To send large quantities of himself into infinite space,
Quickly coalescing into a delicate moon
A moon that now he struggles to hold to,
A moon that now he composes sonnets to,
A moon that dictates his tides and life cycles
It’s very hard to believe,
But it’s true
The moon did not form with earth It is of him.
Oak Roads: Poetry and Musings 