I Slide Through Time

Anointed, gifted, uplifted,

By the whispers of those,

Who shyly spill their lives to me.

They seek succor for warts,

Injured hearts, sun-burned parts,

Other sundry mundane ills,

That all endure.

The sick, the seeking,

I assist them,

Question them,

Comfort them,

Treat them as best I can.

And rarely,

One will, unawares,

Slip me a miraculous, disquieting,

Sky-soaring gift.

As I gently cover,

And pronounce a family’s grandpa dead,

Wash the Sister’s,

Slipped-at-recess bleeding knee,

Towel dry,

The squalling newborn’s head.

I feel my finite self jolt,

Split several,

Take flight and rise.

I slip, slide, glide through time,

Fly right out of my own brain.

I see the old veteran, peacefully still.

Close his eyes with respectful fingers.

Now he is a dry-skinned corpse,

Yet as I touch his papery husk,

I am gripped by the sight of him,

Vigorous at twenty-two.

Vibrant, valiant,

He is incandescent,

Shouting orders to his troops,

In the Battle of la Drang,

At treacherous dusk.

Then a flash of him triumphant,

Months later in Boston,

Kissing his ecstatic bride.

The Sacrosanct Sister?

I see her choosing,

God and virginity,

Over another kind of life

As a small-town wife.

I watch her teaching,

Her classful of wriggling children,

She’s feeling gently pleased,

At her singular lot in life.

The squalling, squirming,

Black-haired babe?

As impossible as it seems,

I suddenly spot her;

Space-suited, celestially rooted,

Tending solar panels,

In the airless perimeter of Mars,

Fulfilling her fantastic,

Iconoclastic,

Adventurous scientist dreams.

At first I was both

Shaken and alarmed.

Years living the oath,

Have taught my heart,

That glimpses like these,

Do no one harm.

 

Paula Lyons, MD

5/5/20

11//12/85

1/14/10

6/7/2014