Soliloquy

You’re reading this now on your dimly lit hospital bed
Where I never dreamt of setting up a home for you
Life has a cruel way of making triumph and disaster look alike
And as I shed another invisible tear in your presence
There is a bucket-load of this yet to come
Whatever you have learnt, it will come to pass
But if you manage to cheat the inevitable, which I hope you do
Cheat not the disease that engulfed you or the blood tests
Or the doctors and the scientists, or the young nurse
Cheat that faith which told you that you wouldn’t survive

It is strange to me this way, but I like all your purple moods
Even the times when you would be engulfed by the inanity
And refuse to speak to either me or your mother
Oh, how I wish those days could come back
Or the day when you were thirteen and
Brought your first grazed knuckle home
You said that you had fallen down from your bike
But Lisa next door had seen you punch the boy down the street
Who hung around dark shadows and leered at girls
He went home with a broken jaw that night

When I think of daughters, I wasn’t expecting this
But I like this more and when I say ‘like,’ of course, I mean ‘love.’
Death, which you fear greatly now, has a more profound
Impact on people than life can ever hope to achieve
But how I wish I could to take all your suffering
And exchange your anguish for my contentment
I am sorry that I cannot take your pain away
The boy down the street with his shattered jaw
And broken nose in tow lies in a hospital too,
While he dreams, perhaps, of forgiveness.

Note: This poem is inspired by Michael Ondaatje’s ‘To A Sad Daughter’