END LINE More than windmills to tilt with... I've always been a yin/yang - front /back - clear/blur up/down - life/death kind of guy my own peculiar duality being philosopher slash hypochondriac

win win characteristics when you've been diagnosed with a life threatening disease finally the hypochondriac has more than windmills to tilt with the philosopher arming himself with exactly the proper petard an explosive statement found in an e-mail message beneath the signature of a cancer combatant's name a perfect end line wily and wise quote: I ask God: "How much time do I have before I die?" "Enough to make a difference." God replies +++

AFTERWORD - Although I have posted END LINE before (four years ago), after what I have recently been through it needed to be aired again.

When I was first diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer the very first email I received on the subject came from a stranger, a fellow PCa traverer, who's mother was a friend of mine and had written her son telling him about my situation. This would have been nine and a half years ago. I remember the message was one of encouragement but the sentence under his signature knocked me for a loop. It was just what I needed to hear. And although I am a non-theist the end line has become my mantra - something I strive to live up to even when the odds seem to be against me.

DEMENTIA Almost imperceptibly the ship began to move away... when I was 19 my parents went around the world leaving from the San Francisco marina on a freighter with passenger accommodations back in those days when the gang plank had been raised and the ship was ready to depart the passengers would line up at the rail looking down throwing serpentine colorful paper streamers

to friends and family on the pier below we would hold tight to one end while those we hold dear held on to their end of these slender fragile ribbons then slowly almost imperceptibly the ship began to move away the paper connections snapping one by one as the steamer headed out into the bay after fifty five years together my cancer is incurable and your memory is fading which makes me acutely aware of time circling the drain running out of the clock wondering whether the love of my life will slip over the horizon before I am forced to leave the dock +++

AFTERWORD - I have been putting off writing DEMENTIA for about six months. Usually when bad things happen they immediately become inspirations, grist for my "poetic observation" mill. As you know I have raked a lot of chestnuts out of the advance prostate cancer fire. But when Billie Barbara was diagnosed with the beginnings of dementia I froze.

    So far only her short-term memory seems to be effected. Her long-term memory is fine. I mean, she still can remember every thing I ever did wrong for fifty-five years. It's just that she doesn't remember what day it is or who she just talked to on the phone, that sort of thing. And I can't let annoyance creep into my voice when she doesn't remember or I have to answer the same questions again, or it upsets her. This poem is the only one I have written that Billie will never see.

    I must have started working on this piece twenty five times but my fear wouldn't let me keep at it. I told a few people about the memory that seemed to explain how I felt, and after I returned home from the hospital I knew it had to be written and the words simply poured out of me in about thirty minutes.

Billie Barbara and I don't have much to say to each other these days but we tell each other we love each other all the time and hold hands in bed when we go to sleep.

    Years ago, a wonderful old couple lived close to us in the Carmel Highlands - Ephraim and Rosa. When Ephraim died at 84 Rosa was in early stages of Alzheimer's, for over a year she would wake each morning and ask for Ephraim only to be told he had died. For over a year she lost her husband every morning - all the more reason for me not to leave the dock before Billie Barbara slips away.

FOLLOW-UP to DEMENTIA  - This particular piece brought in far and away the most response that any poem has received during these nine years of posting weekly WORDS AND ONE-LINERS. A dear friend, Paul Sawyer, took the time to send me a snail mail hand written message and a poem telling me that he would never speak to me again if I didn't read DEMENTIA and the "Afterword" to Billie Barbara. "Shit man," he said, "Don't you know a love poem when you write one?" So I read it to Billie and we both held on to each other and shed many tears. Thanks Paul! 

ON THE MOUNTAIN "'Sky flying' - Watch me Grandpa!" last summer whenever possible my visiting granddaughter Cara would worm her tiny hand into mine and like Hansel and Gretel we'd strike out from the house up the "Barking dog trail" to the "Creaky swings" don't you love the labels little children put on things? and after a few "Sky flying" "Watch me Grandpa!"s it was on to the "Sneaky table" where hidden in the shade beneath a giant live oak tree we would split the forbidden can of Coke I brought "Damn it Dad her teeth will rot!" rested and refreshed we then ascend the "Slidey steep" to check the water level in the "Water keep" to lift the lid and take a peek then down the trail in single file we go through the "Witchy woods" all the way to Arizona which is what my spouse has dubbed the shack she uses as her dream shop and studio Grandma it seems also has a knack for naming things "If anyone calls tell them I'm in Arizona." next stop - the family memorial garden where we solemnly commune with the trees Kim and Emil have become chanting softly as we pass

"From ashes to ashes to flowering plum." then wending our way along a stretch of "Dusty dirt" we search for yesterdays footprints covering them with todays "Backward walking" sometimes "To fool our enemies and friends." and always during the final leg of this backyard expedition my companion lags behind little Miss Slowpoke gathering specimens repeating after me the name of every trail side shrub and tree eucalyptus - sticky monkey lilac - sage - madrone and "Don't touch that it's poison oak!" then suddenly: "We're home!" last summer Cara and I collected and polished these moments leaving them along the path like pebbles to be used in the distant future the way a whiff of cigar smoke brings my grandfather back to poke about in the garden with his walking stick the way my grandmothers face magically appears at the taste of peppermint her watchful presence close at hand whenever I shake sand from something that has been to the beach I know that on some faraway tomorrow a sip of Cola on a hot day - a pinch of sage - the creaking sound a rope swing makes these things with Cara's help will bring me back to life again and thankful as I am for such life extending crumbs sadly I also know that the cigar smoke and peppermint trick can only be done by me - in a couple of generations it all becomes a banquet for the crows +++

 

AFTERWORD - What gets this Grandpa is that the five-year-old in this poem is graduating from Princeton this Spring. She is also finishing her first novel. She is an eager student, a fine artist, a skilled varsity saber fencer, and an extraordinary chef. When I ask her what she is going to do next year she hasn't the foggiest idea. That's my granddaughter, so please pardon me for bragging just a bit.

Ric Masten's weekly WORDS & ONE-LINERS http://www.ric-masten.net

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