Subject: [OTL]: Vigil [Cecilia Reyes, poetry]
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 18:30:03 -0800
From: Dyce-Elihara <dycemeister@yahoo.com>

Disclaimer:  Cecilia Reyes is not mine, although I'd
quite like it if she was.  She belongs to Marvel,
though, and I don't have permission to use her.  But
I'm not making any money thereby.

(And, in the spirit of the current debates vis a vis
warnings, feel free to imagine a big honking red
'ANGST' label on this puppy. If you like.)

Vigil
By Dyce

I wait, and watch the clock's slim hands,
Tick slow around its pallid face,
Each minute  is a lifetime long,
Then vanishes without a trace.

The waiting is the worst of all,
Or so I hear young soldiers say.
Their elders shake their heads, assured,
That the fighting's worse than waiting,
And never over soon enough.
But neither has the right of it,
And this I know for certain sure,
For it's the waiting that's the worst,
The wait that's after, not before.

Ev'ry time, I start by waiting,
Until the diagnosis comes,
Transparent X-rayed battle plans,
Blood-charted enemies arrayed,
In wounded flesh to make a stand.
Waiting done, I must get ready,
With soap-and-water ritual,
I garb myself in paper armour,
The trappings of a holy war.
I wield a scapel for my sword.
I plunge headlong into battle,
Against a shadow'd enemy,
Who fights me with the blood of the
Wounded, whose battle-cry is the
Catch in a closing throat;
Its vict'ry march the flatline tone.
Every day we meet in battle,
Duel across a too-still form,
And when the battle's over, then
The waiting has truly begun.

And I am helpless then, indeed,
For I have used up all my skill,
Laid down my sword and armour, and
Left the bloody field of battle.
Unwilling I am torn away,
For there is nothing left to do,
But watch, and wait, and maybe pray.

The waiting is the worst, I know,
For at last then I am helpless,
My sacred battle lost or won,
And I as yet unknowing if,
This is the battle I will lose;
If this day my skill deserts me,
If the life I have done battle for,
Is already lost to me, and
I simply do not know it yet.

And though I would once have sworn that,
Nothing could make the wait more cruel,
I would have sworn to falsehood; for
Infinitely harsher is to wait
Upon the living of a friend.
And knowing, should they live, why then,
'Tis but more waiting 'til they come,
Again under my scalpel-sword,
That I may battle Death for them.

Now it is I, lying helpless,
Who is anxious waited for, and
I am join'd in my anxious prayer
That the patient that I am will live
For yet another 'one more' time.
I know now, what I did not then,
And there's comfort in the knowing,
The doctor does not lonely fight
For embattled flesh and bone.
And the battle's no more easy,
When the body is my own.

(fin)