Diagnosis: MS by Lee Robison

 

Image / Designecologist

Diagnosis: MS

I watch the sun go down–such an ancient thing— 

from before gods or the thought of gods— 

this falling sun, failing day, diminishing toward night.

More recent is our watching–more recent yet, my wariness

and the wish to hold that flame still and dam time,

hold it still in this always now 

or, better yet, in that better then of our innocence–  

amber time in an always paradise

when your flaws did not exhibit, before the diagnosis, the curse, 

before the who-you-are abjured the who you would be—

Or if I cannot halt time, perhaps lay my hands on, 

the way prophets claim healing, 

against that congenital witch in you 

that unbraids, flays the sheath, bares nerves.

O hand, o hopeless, useless hand.

Is there not a place or time under this sun 

where I might channel healing, kill wounds,

where love's touch is the all that is needed to mend 

molecule's dark calling, her genetic foreordination, 

a when where just love, 

and a parent’s hand might halt these horrors 

the gods deign on us.

No, Childe, no. There is no then or there 

where gods and prophets lend a hand to heal, 

but only this is, this 

now we have come to, down a helix of chaotic switches

that made your lovely hands and their wasting numbness,

made mine with all their useless dexterity; 

there is only this here and now, where

the sun still rises, and this morning cottonwood wool 

rafts the pond and litters the shore,

where winds tremor the ephemeral flax; 

and sunflowers bloom, will blow, then winnow this fall.

This is the all and ever of our forever

which we may make of what we will 

with what we are, flaws and all, 

until we are the flawlessness of nothing.

© Lee Robison

Lee Robison

Lee Robison is retired from Federal service. He lives with his wife in Montana on a sliver of the ranch he grew up on, a couple of mountain valleys west of The Paradise. Lee currently works as a potter, poet, and storyteller. His collection of poems, entitled Have, was published by David Robert Books in 2019. 

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