Foot has excellent taste. Here's another by Mary Oliver:

Roses, Late Summer

What happens
to the leaves after
they turn red and golden and fall
away? What happens

to the singing birds
when they can't sing
any longer? What happens
to their quick wings?

Do you think there is any
personal heaven
for any of us?
Do you think anyone,

the other side of that darkness,
will call to us, meaning us?
Beyond the trees
the foxes keep teaching their children

to live in the valley.
So they never seem to vanish, they are always there
in the blossom of the light
that stands up every morning

in the dark sky.
And over one more set of hills,
along the sea,
the last roses have opened their factories of sweetness

and are giving it back to the world.
If I had another life
I would want to spend it all on some
unstinting happiness.

I would be a fox, or a tree
full of waving branches.
I wouldn't mind being a rose
in a field full of roses.

Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition.
Reason they have not yet thought of.
Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.
Or any other foolish question.

@footfootfoot, thank you - the poems are beautiful, I love both of them. Unbelievably apt ...

@sexobon, I'm familiar with that saying - have just found that taking a hard look at death makes me want to draw a little more from what's left of life.

@SamIAm, thanks for this - I really have to look up Mary Oliver. Don't know why I haven't run across her work before.

(Sorry to be a bit telegraphic - rough day coming off steroids.)

That's OK, any communication tells us a lot. ;)

God, Mary Oliver gets right to my gut-I know it's pure poetry b/c I get goosebumps when I read her stuff. Those are great poems to contemplate; slowly; over and over again. I remember when I was having some sort of rough time and SamIAm sent me the Wild Geese poem and it made me feel better.

I also like the one that begins "You do not have to be good-" b/c I am not and I always think I should be.

My thoughts this rainy, blowy morning are with you orthodoc. You will prevail.

One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


You will survive this and forgive me if I make you gag (it would've made ME gag if someone had said it to me when I was sick) but cancer made me stronger, better, more loving and forgiving and more compassionate. Hard to believe, but I used to be worse than now. Just ask around. ;)

It's true. She did!

true.

but that's not saying much (given what a fine, intelligent, compassionate friend she is now).

I'm sorry if my experience with cancer didn't live up to your expectations, bigV.

Cancer slacker. You call those tumors? HA! I've seen bigger tumors on a, uh, umm...

highlight and read biggies white words

I'm an idiot. I apologize, BigV.

I'm a super sensitive wench sometimes (as we all know) and I took it completely in the wrong way. It's easy to do that when we communicate via computer and have no inflection or body lang. to grasp on to.

I apologize and thank you for your kind words.

Apology accepted, but I respectfully disagree about you being an idiot--you're not an idiot.

I was trying to be clever, but I hurt your feelings instead. That was my mistake, and I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. It's true I, and everybody here, thinks you're great. I don't know if teh big C is to credit or blame, but I sure like the net effect.

:eek:

total doubletake.

thanks for the whiplash, dana, thanks a lot.

Trils, you may be off the hook with BigV, but I still say you are a total cancer slacker.

But you're OUR cancer slacker.