A recent conversation triggered memories of a health scare, but composure was regained with a realisation of scale.
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The heavy moon rose blood-red
full faced and lifting slowly
like a glutton from a feast
drawing me to the dark horizon
as dough rises slowly to the yeast –
a resurgence that lightens heaviness
by rehydrating desiccation.
Earlier, we had talked of death scares.
I had minimised my diagnosis
to causality that verged on lethargy
in fear of him being bored
for both felt safely past the perigee
as if our early termination calls
had never played the departure board
But then he mentioned blood.
How under undisclosed conditions
his balance was stabilised by drugs
preventing loss of oxygen in his arteries,
which recalled the threat within my lungs
where Damoclean fibres hang their swords.
Both again then felt our deferred mortalities.
Driving in the darkness from the meeting
the remembered fragility of being hung
like a winter overcoat on a balmy night
a heavily self-imposed constriction.
Then behind a copse rose ethereal light
the bloody moon loosened self-infliction
refuelling wonder by its awesome sight.
Each life, solitary or shared, is best
journeyed as an emissary for wonder
sampling cosmological fragments in awe
of their seemingly timeless existence
on a scale beyond frail humanity’s lore
where compensation for impermanence
is a glimpse of infinity’s composure.
