My trusted family doctor said
“Sit down, I have bad news.
Your PSA is very high
there are tests we have to do.”
I sat numbly as if in shock.
I scarcely heard a word.
This can’t be happening to me
This whole thing is absurd.
I have a wife, three kids I love
Important work to do
A house in a good suburb,
With a mortgage payment due.
* * * *
I went into the hospital
And they performed the test.
I can’t say now which was worse-
the pain or my distress.
I started bleeding heavily
The room swam from my view
They told me later that I spent
Three days in I.C.U.
Three days I spent dead to this world
Like Jesus in the tomb
But no angel awakened me-
just the beeping breathing tube.
** **
The biopsy was negative
No cancer cells were found
They gave me back this life again,
but turned my world around.
I walked alone along the beach
Where sea contends with land
I thought about my life restored
my life’s work seemed like sand.
I noticed as I walked along
The verge of sand and sea
The busy tide washed out my steps-
all evidence of me.
The god$ I’ve worshipped all my life
Are mortal just like me.
But the God stuff is eternal
Like the salt and unplumbed sea.
John F. McCullagh
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-we-dead-awaken/
