July 12, 11:47 p.m.

When Candlelight Turns to Dawn

Sitting on the bed, in my nightgown and my slippers, no, that is not a pair of slippers. Thats a cat Its nearly midnight. Dan and I began this morning with a bit of trepidation, but borrowing our sons car (the truck is making funny sounds and needs something from a mechanic), we began our trip down to the Cancer Center in the big city. Not San Francisco, but the little Big City, Santa Rosa. All the prayers from people became candles of many colors as we drove over the just-now-spring hills. At first I thought it was the sun becoming day. The doctor gave us four hours of his time, talking, showing us my mammogram. His nurse gave us a half an hour of information. Her kindness was forever. The news is so good I felt tears in my eyes so many times, but I made them stay there, and not become small creeks on my face. We began our journey thinking I needed a double mastectomy, only to discover, not only is just one breast affected by the cancer, but the surgeon is also trained in reconstruction, though he said he needs to look for a plastic surgeon who will do the final nip and tuck that will make the new breast look more like a breast rather than a crude play-doh idea of a breast. For Medi-Cal wages. Aye, theres the rub. Medi-Cal of course wont pay either surgeon what they are worth, what they deserve, but these people are so caring, so loving of the human body, and the hearts inside the people, they are willing to work for less pay and give expertise kindness to women who ordinarily could not afford to even be buried after they die of cancer if they didnt have the money for a surgeon. Like in the old days. I am so fortunate. I raise my hands to the sky, even as I know God isnt up there, Hes everywhere, in everything, but humans need rituals and rites and celebrations as well as gnashing of teeth and stamping of feet in anger and fear. The doctor said it would take about two weeks to get approval and I sighed with relief. If I work many hours every day, I can organize my Work in case God decides to send the angels after my sweet ass and Dan decides to publish a first draft of a poem that needs work.

So there is that word. Work. Im a poet. Not a greeting card, once in a while poem for someones nieces birthday kinda poet, but a work everyday, gnash my teeth and stamp my feet when the poem wont go right, used to go out and get drunk when the poem did go rightI was waay younger then. Now I try to write another poem. Enough to make a book. Now it truly is earn a small living driving to small towns where people have written grants to Poets & Writers, Inc or some other organization to pay me a hundred dollars to come and read to twenty or fifty people, heck, sometimes we read to a hundred or more starved-actually-starved for poetry to people Or people who write themselves and been coming to poetry readings for 20, 30 years just like some guys got season tickets to the Super Bowl. Some of these people are coming for the first time in their lives. Little towns, dusty roads, noisy trucks and even junior high sized kids whose teachers have turned them onto Poetry Slams and Jack Kerouac, Linda Noel who has one book out and is finishing up Mountain Stitch and poets like Dan Barth who write books called Fast Women Beautiful or A Grammer of Longing by Theresa Whitehill which are actually available through Amazon .com. Or Songs and Sonnets by Larry Beckett available through Rainy Day Women Press in Willits CA or Amazon.com. This isnt an advertisement. The point is that being a poet, a real poet is starting to become respected in America. Were still a scruffy lot, a work-several-day jobs and eat mostly beans and rice, unless yr ol man has a .32 and then you eat Autumn venison and have a serious garden every year that you jar up or dry stuff from. Its like going to the movies to these people who come to Poetry Readings. Both men and women dress up, women dab on a little lipstick, women get their honey to zip up the sexy dress and the men get their ladies to polish up their cowboy boots There are rituals to this Poetry business and part of it is the Poetry Reading and thats my reward for the working til sometimes two in the morning getting the poem just right. We work hard and we party hard. Just like the Big Boys on Mad Avenoo. Yeah. Yeah. Not. We got ethics, and they do not. There is Work, a body of Work, which I have gathered throughout my years from seventeen to fifty-six. Like rushes and pussy willows and water flags of many colors, I carry in my arms like a sleeping child, barefeet dangling

against my now-whole, but damaged chest which will be made well soon. And I love this Body, this child of mine. And then there is work, as to work on the Work; to open each poem and decipher its rightness. Each poem has its own breath. Its own music. Its own sense of Being and we know when each one is Right and when we are jiving ourselves and our readers, so we try like heaven to not bullshit, but play the game straight. And thats why its called The Work. Its a Calling. Like the priesthood, like being a nun. Or a doctor who saves peoples lives from once incurable diseases. Poets speak for people who have no language, or no vocal cords for the soul and other poets and sometimes those poems read aloud heal a person. Once in Sacramento I saw three women descend upon a man who had just read an awfully violent and scary story about ghouls giving a child molester what he had coming and these women were crying and thanking the writer for healing them just a little bit. Sometimes a little bit is a lot and its the best yr gonna get under any circumstances. Docotrs heal people too, only with cancer, they got to get it all the first time, or if theyre lucky, a few years later go back in and get the rest, but they try to do it all the first time. Poets do too. So thats what Im thinking about when were driving home and Im exhausted physically from the pain and the emotions, and Dan is exhausted emotionally, but we are filled with Light, sparkling, dazzling-on-the-river light that blinds ya if yr too tired to close yr eyes, but then ya close yr eyes cuz yr just so tired & so full of relief that you can believe, yes there is some Hope. I know out there its still the dark woods, even if I did start this out exclaiming about the light. And it will be so until the surgery is over and they have tested me again. There will be Light and Dark and Light and Dark for some time to come. As long as I remember to trust God, ( I mean, if you cant trust a diety who invented the hummingbird, the hedgehog, gave us His son), there will always be light dancing on the water. As long as I keep the faith, there will always be that Light to come home to.