A SHINING FACE

“Stephan, full of grace and power, began to do great wonders and signs among people. … and his face seemed to them like the face of an angel.” (Acts 6:8, 15)

The cardiologist’s report started out
with a shocker:
“This is a delightful elderly gentleman.”
Not exactly how I would have thought of myself …
a gentleman? … so I would like to believe,
but delightful? … not as a rule I think
(maybe an 8 on a 0-10 quiet/reserved scale)
elderly? … yes, over 70, but “elderly”?
not until the day not so long ago
I read the doc’s words.

Now, each morning
I count out thirteen different types of
pills and supplements for the day.
What, me, I used to think?
to become a pill-popper
like mother and dad?
No way!

It’s mostly just numbers
that tell doctors
that tell me that I need pills.
Or, is this lessened energy
really more than just the toll
of the years?

I’d left my job after dad died …
to write about him I thought,
perhaps my own story too.
Yet first I needed to transform his
rickety hillside summer cottage
into a sturdy, cozy year-round home,
with an office from which to view
the sun-sparkling bayocean waters off Cabbage Island
where we scattered dad’s ashes
... and from which to write.
Three plus years later the work fulfilled
my boyhood dream
of one day building my own house.

Now ten years
since stating my intention to write …
the practical necessities of daily living,
trying to be a dutiful househusband
and diversion upon diversion …
the stories yet await telling,
stuck energy I’m told
that could express itself only
through those scary ailments for which
… religiously … I pop the pills.

What are you telling me, unruly blood sugar?
unruly beating heart?
you prostate cells so unruly
the docs had to quieten you
with radiation?

What are you telling me you crooked stiff fingers
that served me so well in the past
and now are so reluctant to bend?

Why did Word crash mysteriously just now
but a few lines into my story,
followed a measly paragraph after starting over
by a distant rumble of thunder and momentary power loss
that shut down my computer altogether ...
wiping out fledgling efforts twice in a row?

Why, passing through the kitchen to the bathroom,
am I distracted by the breakfast mess calling for cleanup,
and tempted to pause to make a cup of tea?

What does it matter … to me, to anyone …
if I tell my story? or my dad’s?
Is it a writer’s fate always
to suffer such tests of resolve?

“Would you have liked it if your dad
had written down his story for you?” my wife asks.
“Oh,” I hear myself say,
“I have so many questions now,
if only I had asked him
before it was too late.”

Despite all then,
deep down I know I must write
if I’m to say "no" to ailments
and “yes” to life.
Despite all then,
here begins of my story.

Please meet a “delightful”
pill popping gentleman grandpoppa,
stiff fingers reluctant to type.

I’ll try to tell some of where I’ve been,
what I’ve thought and felt and seen.
But think not that this is who I am.

Don’t you see,
if raised down under by an Aboriginee
far different would have been my story!
Even would I be non-recognizable perhaps,
still none-the-less me.

What if,
in profoundest silence,
I empty myself (even momentarily)
of ego: all feelings, fears, desires,
beliefs about who I am,
thoughts about past and present,
expectation about the future?
What … if anything …is left?
My energy! My inner Light!
My warm heart! My shining face!