Breast Strokes

 Cathy's Poems:

Night Before First Chemo

fear last night

feeling the play of musical chairs

wondering -

Is there a chair for me?

— Cathy

Butterflies on my Socks

Why would I want to rush through chemo?

Isn’t this moment giving me all I need

or could ever want?

Butterflies line up on my bright pink socks

like fighter pilots

jets fueled and ready to fly.

Wings stretch down my legs and out to my toes.
They are like burrs on my socks, going only where I go.
We share good times, my feet

and the butterflies

on my socks.

I tuck my feet under the chair
and rub my toes

back and forth on the floor.

Tummy is content.

The butterflies on my socks

put the butterflies inside

to rest.

— Cathy

Rice Paddies

 “In Balinese language and understanding, "rice paddies" equals "jewel" equals "mind."”

Stewart Brand writing on a talk by Stephen Lansing 

In Bali, the music is dense

like their view of time,

which overlaps,

ten kinds of weeks concurrently,

solar, lunar, seven-day, six-day on down

to a one-day week.

We view time as past, present, future,

linear;  each day is strapped to a rod we climb,

looking back or up, at what we’ve done,

and what is yet to do.

When I try and stretch my mind

to view this day ten ways,

I hear the squeak of the rising of the sun,

the setting down of the moon,

the roar and purr of clouds,

the lifting of dew.

I see the hills and trees

from top to bottom

reflected underneath,

by worms carving,

gophers mounding,

and moles tunneling

deeply below.

And I’m spun like a top,

on the whirr of  blood and leaves,

exchanging gases,

like letters,

as pollen is carried

by bees.

— Cathy

Jane's Poems:

I am taking a vow

To witness the earth turning toward light
and turning away
each day
like dragging a back skate to slow the glide across
childhood’s frozen river
a way to catch the breath and hold it.

Today, not quite solstice,
as the last of autumn’s leaves answer the wind
with rattled throats
the sunrise has no color
and stirs reluctantly beneath
its gray felt cover.
before it realizes the
melted yellow
of butter in a bowl of winter oats.

— Jane

Solstice Time

Winter’s angled day
has turned
the late tomatoes red
along the window sill.

The fan of leaf
whose veins
had caught the sun
has aged to russet.

Here in this stillness,
like the hand of dervish
at the center of his dance,
is knowing

the young light
will come again.

— Jane

The End of Beginning

Sometimes a door shuts, so softly the air barely whispers

It seems a small thing, the pull of hydrogen, carbon

Then you notice that something you've known all your life has gone missing.

Like an ear that goes deaf, a dog that's gone lost— here and then not.

It seems a large thing, the attraction of carbon to carbon.

You spend some time feeling the edges this something fits into,

Something whose secrets you¹ve held in your throat, here and then not,

Know the shape of your loss against sky til its absence is no longer new.

You spend some time missing the spaces that held it.

Still alive in your cells, in the bright flash of memory

You sing for the missing until being gone is something forgotten

Except for the lightning it makes through your limitless dreams.

Still alive in your cells, in the you that is past

The scent you've rubbed in your palms now is absent

Except in the tangle of vast inner space.

Sometimes a door opens on a landscape unknown.

Oxygen cracks with the scent of ozone and salt.

Now the ground softens, the air opens outward

You pass through the door, embracing the space

Where gravity loosens its grip on your footsteps.

Now the hills melt, the air becomes rare

Your lungs are balloons from which you're suspended

And gravity loses its grip on your feet.

There is nothing around to signify human.

Your lungs become wings with which you can fly

Below there's no tree, no house and no person

There is nothing around not even a stranger

By which to measure your rise and your fall.

Below and above is a landscape of light

No hunger or loss or understood language

By which to measure your joy or your fear.

It's a small thing. It's simple. You’re free.

- Jane

The book Breast Strokes consists of a journal taken from an on-line blog, reflections that look back on  what happened during the nine months of cancer treatment, and poems written by Cathy and Jane during that time.  Poetry was a tool Cathy and Jane used to support themselves and others.  They recommend the reading and writing of poetry as a way to connect with yourself and your surroundings.  

 "Poetry is, above every other human endeavor, the place where person and society are not merely joined but revealed in their original unity."

   -  A.F. Moritz 

 Photo by Danielle Buoncristiani 

 Poetry Support:

The Cancer Poetry Project edited by Karin B. Miller is a wonderful place to begin. 

Panhala offers an inspirational poem each day that can be delivered right to your email box complete with an exquisite photo to match the poem.  This website is pure art.

Julia Cameron's work with writing and journaling is always a gift and support at anytime in a person's life.  

Kim Rosen's book, Saved by a Poem, The Transformative Power of Words is also a tremendous gift.  She also has CD's so you can listen to the words and heal.  

Psychotherapist David Richo has a new book coming out, Being True to Life, in which he "explains how writing and reading poetry can be a rich path of self-exploration and emotional healing for anyone, no matter one’s poetic abilities."

 Photo by Terry Lorant