Tripping

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Tripping


Written about my life; and the life of my best friend, Brian


The sun shines.
When it shines, I love the light.
The stars shine.
When they shine, I love the night.
The rain falls.
When it rains, I love the rain.
Joy and happiness can be found, pure bliss--
Even amidst the most miserable blight.
Pleasure can be found somehow,
To ease the suffering and pain.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Up ahead,
I see a waterfall.
The river I am on is swift.
I have no paddles and I have no way
To guide me to the shore of safety.
I must move forward on my little raft.
I'm heading for the end of all.
I'm heading forward, toward the far, far, farthest fall.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I look up and see the sky.
I wonder why.
I look straight ahead,
And I see my friend, who also soon must die.
Now he also has cancer.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'm afraid for me, and I grieve for him.
I grieve for myself, and for him I fear.

We’ve lost our livelihoods, and our prospects are dire and dim.

Soon our health insurance medical care will disappear.
Neither one of us may have another year.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We only know, that one of us first will go,
And leave the other to face the end,
Without his best friend.
We only know that, much sooner than
Our genetic lifespan,
We will both be cut off: Our future decades are dead.
So many years of life!--cut off--all lost.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I can hear no answer--
No clearly true reply--
To the question Why.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Now I remember the years of life of all my past.
I see ahead a guess-work Question Mark, dark and vast.
What should I do?  What can I do?
A hair divides the deceiving false from the hiding true.
My soul replies:
You cannot tell the truth from all the guesses and all the lies.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
So simply follow time to its inevitable close.
And--on the way--
See every star;
Smell every rose.
Life is a brief gift.
Everything is only for a day.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Try--as the moments fly--
Not to let one moment untasted slip.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Taker of all these things was also the Giver.
Give thanks and praise
For all your few fleet days.
And hope and pray
That there shall be, bright beyond death's night, 
A new living day.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
When you're on a raft on a river,
Heading for a deep-dropping waterfall--
There's just one good thing about it all that you can do:
Enjoy the trip.

=======================

Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Written on Saturday, July 31, 2010 11:43 am PST
Copyright © 2010 by M.L.P. All rights reserved

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abuelita1 commented on Tripping

12-02-2010

You and Brian are in my thoughts and prayers. Beautiful poem and thoughts....Love to both....Super A

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-English poet and playwright.

PoetWithCancer’s Poems (224)

Title Comments
Title Comments
Happy Winter Solstice 1
Seasonal Ring 1
My Thanksgiving 0
God's Word 1
Under the Date Tree 1
A Few More Times 1
Divine and Diabolical World 0
Summer-Brief 2
Seasonal Ring 0
Shakespeare's Birthday and Death 0
Special Brian 0
I Remember Brian 0
Light of Life 0
Pain Has Defeated Me Today 1
The Old, Old Words 0
Home Is Where the Heart Is 0
A Sad Contemplative Christmas Today 0
Moments of Memory; In Memory of Moments 0
Sun and Rain, Joy and Pain: I Miss My Friend Brian 0
Dehumanized and Clinicized--N
OT
1
Not Full 0
Love, Loss, and Lennon 0
Dying Dream 0
Brian's Pure Love for His Lady 0
Two Loved Ladies Undergoing Surgery Now 0
The Masks Fall Off at Midnight 1
Prime of Life 1
Low Energy and Less Time: And Too Many Things to Do 1
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Thanksgiving 0
Autumn of Year; Autumn of Life 0
Brian's Birthday and New Year's Eve 0
Under a Constant Star (9/11) 0
Deep Time 0
Is There Anything Out There 2
Classics in the Closet 0
Nobody 0
Feeling the Wind 0
The Wild Doe and the Hunter 0
Happy Birthday, Brian 0
The End of the World: Saturday, May 21, 2011, 6 pm PDT 1
Brian's Special Smile 0
Broken Birth 0
Missing Brian 0
Focus: Today, Happy 0
I Love You, Brian 0
The Ways and the Words of You 1
Stone Cry 0
Amore Immortale 0
Reality and Unreality 1
Lyrical Life 1
Easter 0
Shakespeare's Birthday 0
Friends During Need 1
Death--A Play--or the Final Act 0
Moods 0
I Was Worried About You 0
Song of Life 2
Me 1
Oh Mother of My Life, My Mind, My Heart--Happy Birthday (Sunday, April 3, 2011) 0
Your Money or Your Life 1
Poesis 0
A Last Look at the Moon 0
Tears for Brian: My Tears Spring Suddenly 0
Seventeen in the Past 1
Clusters 1
Suffering and Dying Where Love Is Least 1
Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian 1
Brian Cannot Come Back to Me 3
Seven for Heaven: Human Haiku/Senryu, On Two Straight Guys Who Loved Each Other 3
Five Human Haiku (Senryu): Faithful to the Perfect Form 0
The Scream 3
Life Is 8
Following My Friend 3
Small Moments (Written by Patricia, for Brian) 1
For Precious Michael (Written by Patricia, for me) 4
Dream of Life, Dream of Friendship, Dream of Love 4
The Power to Create 4
A Single Fortune Cookie 6
The Meaning of Life 2
Dreamless 3
Prayers 3
Lost Love 2
I Thank My Mother for My Birthday and for Her Wonderful Mother Love 3
Lennon Lost His Life: And Now, So Has Teena Marie 2
All the Way with Part Way 2
Loving, Living, and Dying 6
Dreaming and Seeming 3
Poem Prayer 2
Science, Poetry, Philosophy, and More 2
Super A, Abuelita1--Th
ank You for Your Support, Caring Love, and Understanding
2
Wonderful Connie 1
Someday-Dying 2
Between Yes and No 3
Love of Life 1
Zappa the Magnificent 1
In the Midst of Life 2
Only One Death 1
Real Illusion 1
The Unknown 1
My Apparently Known Possible Fates in This World 1
No More Me 2
Someone 2
Leaving Life 1
Precious Jade 2
Fear and Grief and Going: Unguilty of the Grave 1
Using and Losing Time 1
Loveless Life 2
Good Life, Good Grief 1
Dreamless 1
Ontology versus Oncology 1
Now Time 2
No Present, No Future: All Past 3
Hippocratic Hell 1
First Light 2
Almost At the Limit [--A Sonnet] 1
Death-Trap 0
Broken 1
Birthday Termination 1
Moments 1
First and Last Cry 1
Love 2
Final Fragility 1
End of the World 1
Tripping 1
Seasonal Ring 1
Gifts that Go and Still Stay 1
Sidney Says: Advice to Poets and All Writers 3
Enthusiasm: God Within 3
Send Me Your Good Will, or Pray For Me--Please 1
Feeling Each Other's Pain 1
Snow Man for a Low Man 0
Explanation of My Poem "As If the Last" 2
New Year, No Love 2
Poetic Form 0
Guilty Pleasures: Not Guilty 2
About Me 1
Live, Laugh, and Love 4
Nothing Special 2
Why a Writer Writes 2
To Sarah Y and Her Beloved Little Boy Who Cries Out: Again! 1
I and You: Unique and the Same 1
Where's the Compasssion in Our Health Care System? 0
Lonely Girl, I'm Feeling the Way You're Feeling: But We Can Both Make It Through 3
Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth 3
Psyche 3
My Bucket List (For Now) 4
My Most SCARED Moments 2
Children of the Stars 2
Passing Life's Test 1
Why More Now? 1
Remembering My Grandma on Thanksgiving Eve 3
Another Thursday, Another Hammer 4
Thursday's Hammer 1
New Birthday 2
Let Love of Life Light Up the Psyche of Fawn 1
To Angel Eyes: The Wonders of Your Life 1
Regarding the Lack of Fall in Texas 2
Light for the Fight 2
All That I Have 3
Shine 2
As If the Last 2
Here Now 1
All in Time 2
The Exile 2
Incurable and Terminal 4
Tripping 2
One More Tomorrow 1
My Dash 4
One of Two Is Stronger 1
No More Romeo; No More Juliet 1
Friendship and Life 1
Snow and Life 3
Live Spelled Backwards 1
Sarah Y 2
To Fly 2
My Cry 1
Moment of Madness 2
Fall From a Great Height 1
A Memory 1
Less Life; No Loving 2
A Loser, True 2
Time Stop 1
Final Sleep 1
Entre Enfer 1
Flying Life 1
One Would Have Been Enough to Make Life Worth Living 5
Once 3
The Haiku Form 2
Bridge to a Comet--Your Visits and Comments to Me 4
Get Well Soon, Luna Marie 2
Winging It (a human haiku, or senryu) 3
Light Locomotive 2
Skite, Where Were You Today? Where Are You Tonight? 2
Angel's Wings, Angel's Voice 4
Shy, but Not Too Shy 2
High Coo 4
From Night to Night 3
Life's Journey's End--Cut Short by Cancer 4
Love, Light, Life, and Night 2
Fear and Courage 1
Death in Life 3
Unknown Final Fate 3
To Right a Poem 4
Crab-Like Concealed 4
Soon 2
All in the Mind 3
Ebony Shine 3
On My Nephew Naming His First-Born Son After Me 5
Love, Loss, and Lennon 3
Eqinox 4
Feeling My Heart 5
The Best Person I Ever Knew: My Best Friend--Brian 2
In Memoriam, George Difficult 3
Lovers 7
Art 5
Things to Do 4
Plane on Fire 3
Ameliorator 5
Thanksgiving 7
Worlds of Light 24
Failure's Fortress 13
Song of Life (Original Version) 13