TheBanyanTree: ADJOINED

[Sharon Mack]

This poem was inspired by an actual phone conversation with my young
son, who has had 4 heart attacks since last February, 2004

ADJOINED 

I never sit
Just still
Watching the candles flicker,
Listening to the music.
I never listen to the quiet.

Moving about
Limping at the irksome pain
Of a hip, of a heel,
The tired aching back
Not laid to rest 
For many nights left unslumbered.

Yet when I make mention
To my young son,
That though in so much pain,
I am not really old
And cannot die yet,
As he with heart so damaged,
Unfixable.

He says, no, 
That I am as sick as he, 
And as close to death.
That we are joined.

But I know
I cannot die of these aches
And limping pain.
That they cannot attack
Or stroke me dead

But only encumber 
My dieing youth
And I object
To find he silences me
For he cannot bear the thought
That only he faces death,
So intimately,
So immediately,
And so alone.