Diagnosis: Life

Diagnosis: Life

            Dedicated to the memory of Earl E Hellerstein

                        December 11, 1920  - September 7, 2009

1.

“O God, O God,” my father wailed.

I sat beside his deathbed and held his hand.

That was the best I could do.

O God, I forgive you for not existing.

You are perfectly innocent.

Unreal deity, your alibi is airtight;

you were not present at the scene of the crime.

But God, maybe I am mistaken.

Maybe you do exist after all.

And maybe you’re responsible

but you have a reason, a justification,

a plausible excuse.

Well if so, then it had better be good.

2.

O Death, what are you grinning at?

Is this another one of your stupid jokes?

Like; are you better fast or slow?

Should you come all at once

like you did for Mom,

by surprise, almost painless,  leaving us in shock?

Or slow, gradual, with plenty of painful warning,

leaving us almost ready when he died?

I get it, there’s not much difference to the living,

and there’s no difference at all to the dead.

Ha, ha, very witty. Ho, ho, that’s rich.

Another useless lesson. Thanks for nothing.

Death, you falsest of friends and truest of teachers,

my father has graduated from your school.

He knew your ways, he battled you all his life,

and he always lost the fight, but won the argument.

So riddle me this, Death;

you child of nature, you son of a bitch;

he understood you all too well,

but did you ever understand him?

3.

O Nature, ever transforming

ever dying, growing and birthing

like the forest in the back yard

visible through the window from his deathbed;

Beloved Nature, immortal mortality,

you’ve already forgotten him. You’ve moved on.

The birds still sing, the trees are still green,

the sky is still blue, as if nothing has happened.

Well, that’s only fair. It’s logical, it’s honest.

Nature, you’re too fair, too logical, too honest.

You’re so fair that you don’t care.

You keep all of your promises, but you take back all of your gifts.

You gave my father life, and then you took it away.

Life was Dad’s diagnosis, his pre-existing condition,

the cause of all his suffering, fortunately temporary.

Well, my father was too honest too, so for him I say;

Mother Nature, you’re a bitch.

O you glorious cosmic chaos

I doubt he understood you

I suspect he didn’t like you

but I know he always loved you, unrequited.

Here he lies, obedient to your laws.

4.

O Cancer, you child of nature, you son of a bitch;

you have made the wrong enemy.

For you have meddled in the affairs of doctors

and they are subtle in their wrath, and cold in their vengeance.

Cancer, you deserve to die.

Every cell of you, everywhere, without exception.

Beware, you illness; my father’s colleagues will hunt you down.

My father’s friends will ransack cell, gene, molecule and atom.

They will learn your secrets,

and they will forge weapons

and they will attack

and you will be destroyed.

Cellular rebellion, you will be suppressed.

Chemical chaos, you will be extinguished.

Genetic error, you will be erased.

Cancer, you traitor, you killer, you torturer;

my father’s friends will come for you. Count on it.

5.

O Father, why need I speak another word?

What should I say, and why say it to you?

These people listening in, they want poetry,

but what use have you for culture now?

They want your story, but I can only tell mine.

Like at my wedding, you stood up and defined a good man

as one who made the world better because he existed.

I say you qualify, but of course I’m biased.

Shall I describe the day I left?

The day before Labor Day, the day before you died;

Two days before my thirteenth wedding anniversary?

I sat at your side, holding your hand,

reading you sonnets from Shakespeare,

playing CDs of Mozart and Miles Davis.

I hope you heard them, but there’s no way to tell.

My ride to the airport arrived at exactly 5:30,

I said goodbye, I kissed you on the forehead, then hurried out.

My friend stowed backpack and suitcases in his car

then told me to check if I had left anything behind.

I rushed back in and ran around.

I’d left nothing in the bathroom, in the bedroom, under the bed,

in the basement, the kitchen or the living room.

I scratched my head. What was left?                                                  

Oh. You.                                                                                             

Still lying there, gaunt. No pain. Staring at nothing.

Mostly interested in the next breath.

So I snuck up to you, kissed you again, and fled.

Dad, I address these words to you in vain.

You aren’t here to hear them, and these others listening in,

they think they witness at a distance.

They think they are separate.

They think they are safe.

They are wrong.

Father, I forgive you for no longer existing.

Your work is done, your research is complete, your war is over.

You can go now, we’ll take it from here.

Farewell forever, Dad.

And may peace be unto you

and unto you be peace.

September, 2009

Inadequate Kaddish

The following poem is for my mother's 7th yartzeit.


***

Inadequate Kaddish

            Dedicated to the memory of

            Marjorie Hope Schecter Hellerstein

                        Dec. 9, 1924  - Jan. 5, 2005

It was only afterwards, coming home, that it hit me.

A week later, long long after that phone call;

After the shock and confusion;

After conference calls and plans and tickets;

After packing and driving and curb-checking and boarding;

After the long, long plane ride;

After the all-day reception at home;

            - with family and friends, neighbors and colleagues

            a huge noisy crowd from all over the country

            so many people loved her so much -

After the memorial service;

            - the rabbi was smooth and poetic, he didn’t know her,

            my wife spoke for me, I was too stunned to speak,

            my father wept difficult tears -

After the burial;

            - my best friend and I stood at her grave,

            “A great lady,” I stoically intoned,

            he agreed, then embraced me with a lover’s caress,

            I am so grateful -

After the sleepless night;

After the repacking and the long talks and the awkward goodbyes;

After driving and curb-checking and boarding;

After taxiing and waiting and taxiing and waiting;

After finally, finally the engines powered up

            and the plane hurtled forward and lept up

            and blasted out of icy Boston at 400 miles per hour;

Then and only then, with all work done

            with nothing left to do but sit and hurt

            swaddled in the privacy of turbine’s scream

Then and only then was I able to wail.

*          *          *          *          *          *

Oh Mom, Mom, what are you doing there?

What business have you in that hole in the ground?

You were only eighty years old!

What keeps you down there that’s better than us?

Your five children, your five grandchildren

that huge crowd of friends and colleagues

your house full of art and music

your two published books, your electric typewriter

that box full of half-finished manuscripts

and above all your verbal sparring partner

your beloved and your equal

that brilliant, difficult and passionate man

who now feels so lonely and so cheated;

what has death to offer you that he has not?

Yes, of course I’m being unfair, it wasn’t your idea.

None of this was according to your plan.

Judging by the scowl on your corpse’s face

you didn’t approve of the bright orange paint

that the mortician smeared on your lips

and you didn’t approve of the coffin

and you didn’t approve of death

and neither do I.

But what right have either of us to complain?

Your life was good, and so was your death.

One moment quietly taking dinner with Dad

calmly chatting of music and art

and the next moment gone, just like that.

Pulse irretrievable despite medical heroics.

O enviable exit!

Death was supremely easy on you, it was only hard on us.

Therefore I do not mourn for you, the dead;

I mourn for us, the living.

You were always 100% genuine, 0% nonsense

so let me be no-nonsense too

and say that I am selfish enough to want you back.

I want you in time, not eternity; suffering, not at peace

and I want you to endure these dreadful things

for the worst possible reason;

because I love you and I miss you

and I’ll never see you again

and I want my mommy back.

You left behind a hole in the air

and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

I miss my mommy,

I miss my mommy,

I MISS MY -

*          *          *          *          *          *

Stop it, Nat, stop it.

Control, control. Chin up, soldier on.

These good people listening to you;

they don’t want agony, they want poetry.

They want rhyme and rhythm, not sobs and sighs.

And if you must inflict free verse on them

then at least amuse them with a story or two.

Show, don’t tell.

Don’t just say she was beautiful, brilliant, generous and brave;

Prove it!

Expound upon a memory revealing all!

Recall and proclaim some definitive incident!

But that’s just what I cannot do.

I strain my brain but draw a blank.

My mind finds nothing in particular to reveal.

Ask a fish about water, ask a bird about air;

they cannot tell you, they know nothing in particular;

they only know everything.

Now ask me about my mother.

*          *          *          *          *          *

And so, kindly listeners, I cannot entertain you.

I offer you no tragic drama, no wry wit, no mystic insight.

There is no culture here for you.

O you distant witnesses, you calm counsellors, so safe and serene;

You do not understand.

You cannot understand, and neither can I.

It happened, but I still don’t believe it.

I still want to send her this poem

this inadequate Kaddish saying nothing but nothing.

So seek my mother within the ecstasy of emptiness.

Show’s over, folks.

Move along, move along.

1  /  12-14  /  2005