Villagers attending church, by Walter Sanders
Dear Dave,
Lamar sits in his wheelchair
at the back of the church: Parkinson’s
propped in his lap like a toddler, bad baby
who crawls on this old man’s chest, pulls
his tired white head to the side
and whispers in his ear about lungs
falling in on themselves. Our minister reads
the words of the Psalmist, who assures us
about the place of the righteous and the wicked.
Lamar’s labored breathing lingers, rests
like a shawl on the shoulders of those of us
who sit in the next to last row. We can’t help
but wonder where the breath of God is, and why
a good man is treated so wickedly.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Lake
- Harrier
- Second Nature
- November letter
- November Sabbath
- Atrial Fibrillation
- What I Wanted to Tell the Nurse When She Pricked My Thumb
- Snow Moon
- Forgive Me
- Over the Hills
- Letter to Dave from the Karen Noonan Center on the Chesapeake Bay
- Spring distractions
- Letter with May’s Insatiable Hunger Tagging Along
- Letter from Midsummer
- Our Forgetting
Gorgeous.
Oh! Thoughts of my father, who had Parkinson’s… a good man.
(o)
This is lovely.
The image of the “bad baby” is a great one.
Great photo.
Powerful.
Great line: Lamar’s labored breathing lingers, rests
like a shawl on the shoulders
Thanks for the positive comments. This was a tough poem to work on. Lamar was a very good man whose life came quietly to a close because of the disease–from vibrancy to a shell that locked all his thoughts behind his eyes.