The Lady is strong and active and beautiful,
but those who see know the tumor is growing.
Its tendrils root their way into her brain,
its tyranny unfolds day by day, its unbridled greed.
She will not survive this, though her people will go on.
Her immune cells will do their best,
till they are overwhelmed.
Every muscle will be sapped for the sake
of the burgeoning cancer, its insatiable hunger
to occupy, to dominate, to feed itself off of her.
But burdened as they are, her organs and tissues
will still do their work. They will serve.
Each will offer its gift for the body,
for the sake of the whole, sick as it is.
They will work their transformations,
sending word from cell to cell,
a sacrament of energy, of union and self-giving.
The cancer takes her beauty, but not her grace.
She may grow moody or quiet or even combative,
but then will weaken and withdraw;
yet even under the tumor’s cruel demands,
every cell but the cancer will faithfully carry on,
heroically doing its given work,
life, even in death, always giving life.
This sustains us,
the joy of good labor and generous living,
a divine love present in our embodiment,
the tireless working of a mysterious grace
in shared effort and the passing of life
from hand to hand, the joining of our lives together
in one beautiful body, even as it fails,
even until the last breath
of a once lovely nation.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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