After a Night of Pain
Pacing the floor because of pain last night,
Sleepless till nearly sunrise. When the dawn
Came and I woke, it had set things aright,
The pain, in its extremity, was gone--
Leaving a shadow of its former self,
And I can write, try to set down in verse
My thoughts upon the nature of this thief,
Pain that is “problem” for philosophers.
Pain steals in unexpectedly, or comes
Loudly; when I awoke the day before
This shadow was with me, had breached my home’s
Defenses, and though I tried to implore
With every means I had at my disposal
This interloper to depart, he was
Indifferent to my every trick, proposal,
A doppelganger for the day, alas!
How happy is our day when we don’t see him,
This robber of time’s sweet complacency,
Who doesn’t, when they see him coming, flee him?
He brought me, from God, to Faith’s apogee,
And turned me, when I had so many plans,
To cancel them when I could wait on him!
Or, going about my business, his demands
Kept interrupting with his proddings grim.
I paced the floor at night, unable to
Relieve me of the bastard’s company,
But he had breached my home, and cut straight through
My best defenses. All the panoply
Of pills to raise against him, the concoctions
Medicinal designed to numb and soothe
Gladly to take despite they carry toxins
Were no match for his wily wit; but forth
In breach of my defense he went about
His nasty work, and helpless I remained
Before his crude device; to nearly shout
I wanted still his visit was detained
And he kept me, in my exasperation
A-wondering if, upon the break of day
(Whenever sleep might come, a brief vacation),
I’d find him there, holed up, with plans to stay
Like an unwanted houseguest. How I hated
Observing his annoying habits by
The minute—how they nearly concentrated
The sum of my attention all his way.
It is the fate of man! As with his ships
Of war, new methods of attack installed,
New methods of defense must come to grips,
As when first wooden ships were fireballed
The navy had to invent Ironclad
Or all were sunk, and burned up by the scorcher
Of powdered projectiles which, when new, had
Capacity to wreak new kinds of torture.
So too our illnesses; when our defense
No matter how our methods we refine
May yet be breached, our well-thought regimens
For keeping body sound in their design
Rendered as ineffectual against
Ever evolving manners of attack
No matter how profoundly we have fenced
Ourselves and all the members of our pack
From the incursions of disease—and with
The introduction of technologies
Man-made for the protecting us in pith
To combat and keep us free of disease,
Our methods of defense must of a course
Evolve to be more complicated. Doctors--
To the extent they don’t make matters worse--
With potions of which they are the concoctors,
Thus find themselves required now to maintain
Levels of mental clarity intenser
Than ever in the past, in fighting pain,
Disease and illness, test they be dispenser
Of accidental harm—as with the ships
Of modern warfare maintained by the navy,
Only meticulous upkeep equips
Them to be used by seamen very savvy,
In mastering and the coordination
Of knowledge specialized in multifacets,
Or else in practice, all their information
Will fall apart, and harm the navy’s assets
With discombobulation that results
In fatal accidents or even if
Repairable, demanding nuts-and-bolts
Precision, not attained by careless riff
Of thoughtless engineering, and requires
The allocation and expenditure
Of resources. A tiny act acquires
Though it be routine maintenance, or cure,
Risk seeming disproportionate, except
We understand, how in the evolution
In combatting diseases there has crept
Greater complexity in a “solution”
Than hitherto imagined. Day is come,
And I find I have turned philosopher
In cloud of speculation, that in sum
Will come to naught; far better I defer
According to my own proclivities,
To plan my day, now that my doppelganger
Has left me, and with day’s activities
I may proceed, no more “to seem the stranger”
In my own skin. One learns to take respite
From pain, from illness, from the worn-out feeling,
Whenever chance affords it, with delight,
And energetically, with spunk, go dealing
Lance in hand with the matters of the day.
My planet that revolved so far from God,
Is closer now, my guest has gone away
Upon a painfree morning, thank the Lord!
Thus life in its ellipsis ever run,
Faith with its systol-diastolic brightness,
As I go forth today to chase the sun
The planets seem aligned in perfect rightness.