Steady Breathing

There is something heroic
in the way we can deal with our mortality.
There is something uncanny
in the repetitious coincidence of fate
that consumes those we love.
Rob's cancer has returned.
The brain tumour with the exotic name
is growing with an aggressive passion.

" We've been here before ", he said.
This gentle giant's quiet embrace
paid silent homage to the memory
of the man whose absence still screams
in the silent hollows of our hearts.

We manage in some magical way
to find a stillness
that prepares us for inevitable loss -
a way to live in the moment,
to celebrate time's emdroidery
in all its infinite, elaborate detail.

Like the innocents whose lives are wasted
by power-mongering bombers in the Middle East
we live in a place
when there are no real choices,
only consequences.

With steady breathing, we bear the unbearable.