Meander 1 Poem - A Patient Death
At night, I used to slip into his room.
My flashlight casting dimples in the dark.
This dying man had made me more than friend.
I was a child with frightened view of death.
He seldom spoke, and yet I felt at ease.
His eyes were mirrors of his knowledge deep.
A gnawing pain was always at his side.
My needle was conqueror of his pain.
We grew to understand each other's ways.
In that darkened room, we cared and listened.
He of my life and me about his death.
Then late one night, I slipped into his room.
The breathless silence held me quiescent.
He never spoke.
Blank eyes, mirrors of death.
Meander 2 - Contests - The last two months of my life have seen me judging contests for writers. I really enjoy doing this. Each contest is different. One is just a few pages with a sheet of questions to answer and a critique to write. This year, the contest brought a lot of writers and some good and some bad. What I found was openings that didn't draw me in and a lack of the use of the senses to show character and setting. That's a shame. The second contest had three levels. The first was just reading three chapters and deciding if the story could move on. These were all published books. I didn't pass along too many. I'm not sure why since there's nothing i like more than a good story. The second level is reading the entire book and deciding which books were to be among the finalists. This was easier and harder. Some books were really, really good and some where ordinary. The final level is also to read the whole book but in a different category than I read before. Among these books, I found a writer or two who will become one of my buys. That is part of the fun of judging a contest, finding new authors. There is another contest I could have judged but I didn't. Why? Because what I receive is paper copies of the books. I seldom read a paper book these days.
Meander 3 - Writing - Still working on The Leo-Aquarius Connection and now have 3 chapters looking good. Soon to have a fourth but there are still eight to whip into shape. The deadline looms ahead but somehow I will make it.
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1 comment:
Dear Janet. I spent time in a hospital a couple of months ago, more than half of that time in ICU. Your poem returned me to the nighttime world of that place. The hush, the whispered exchanges, the awareness of being at the cusp of life. You re-invoked all of that for me and made me gasp at the recognition. Obviously I lived and frankly I have avoided backward glances. Now I know why. It's all still too real, too fraught. Nonetheless I couldn't stop reading your words.
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