Mary O'Connor: "Good Days"

each glorious third week after Adriamycin


Low light before sunrise, distant birdsong, smell of damp earth.
Under the quilt in the laze of limbs morning-slack,
a long slow waking, and comfort in the bed.

                                      •

The head in order observes thoughts budding, branching,
lights flares, solves puzzles, constructs a theme. Happiness
just to have the words coming, the words in order.

                                      •

Color grows with light: sky, moving clouds, tulips, new leaves,
and this blackberry, its perfect globules closefitting spheres
of dark juicy purples.

                                      •

On my walk a stand of reeds caught by the slanting light,
back home tears let down simply as rain on the coarse yellow cloth
where my bread and apples wait.

                                      •

Neighbors, mail, and visitors, the heft of a squirmy baby
healthy as a trout. His organized joynts, his azure veins.
Later, sweet light shrieks of kids on a trampoline.

                                      •

Inner movements: to be stirred, to know a capacity for ecstasy, to harbor
an obsession that lights me up like a lamp, or a passion for a cause,
a book, music, the life of the spirit.

                                      •

What I don’t know not besting me
what I don’t know for sure not worrying me
what I’ll never know in the hands of God.

                                      •

That something lost with cancer treatment?
It was really something. Here. It’s back.
Thanks.

 
"Good Days" by Mary O'Connor, RSM. Published here by poet submission. © Mary O'Connor.

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer (originally color). Caption: "Karen slowly injects the Adriamycin into the IV. It takes several minutes to inject."

Curator's note: In her submission the poet wrote, "On the good days during the chemo cycle, life wasn’t just good, it shone! Everything stood out in [high definition]. I remember the first time I got glasses when I was 13 and had been short-sighted for years, the way things just came into focus. Amazing. It was like that."