The answers are far less certain
than even last week, to all those
perennial questions or solutions
you might seek.
What do you believe, or
what do you believe in?
Come Monday, you have fewer
questions than you had last week.
For a while there are less doubts
in what you believe.
Whom do you believe in,
and who believes in you?
11/18/2024 j.g.l.
We want to know what
we don’t know, or hadn’t thought of,
or forgot.
What mattered then,
or what mattered when, shifts over time.
We notice.
Perception is what you don’t see.
Deception is what know.
You see it differently through your aloneness.
The truth behind a lie,
you question how and why.
It made sense.
Anticipation keeps us waiting
for only so long. Will it matter
if you felt it never did?
© 2021 j.g. lewis
Slow down: even with the ideas that come to quicky. Take the time to acknowledge the feelings that arrive, as they arrive.
Write it down. How else will you remember what you were thinking?
Print neatly. You hardly understand the thoughts at the time, why make it more difficult to comprehend weeks or years from now?
Follow your own logic; only you need to truly make sense of what is happening, or all that has happened.
Pay attention to the lessons of the past. Be mindful that not all are worth repeating.
Clarity. Make corrections as you go. Flaws become more difficult to correct the longer you live with them.
11/14/2024 j.g.l.
I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
Of Patience and Pain
Saturday night in the ER, it could be 11 or
thereabouts. Time matters not when you are
waiting. Each visitor here has a purpose,
they would not be here had they not. Incessant
florescent lighting obliterates all time. It
could be morning, as easily as it is night.
Settling into chairs of modicum comfort, we wait.
Mothers clutch screaming children, a husband
and a wife, not speaking. Who knows what each
is feeling? Minutes pass slower, punctuated by
coughing and crying. Conversations about nothing,
ailments and symptoms. Disease. I am here, alone.
Why bother someone else with a pain I cannot
control; a pain only I can explain. It is personal.
We all sit, amidst yesterday’s newspaper and
someone else’s problems. We muster the patience
to deal with the sickness, the boredom, the pain,
and the antiseptic scent of helplessness.
An elderly couple sits, three hours now, immune
to the commotion of reckless drunks with bloody
noses. They are quiet, respectful. More people come
and go. And wait. Gradually others take their turn, as
the rest of us wait, not knowing when our time
will come. We hope it is soon, but know it is not.
The elderly gentleman does not remove his hat. She,
tired and hurting, rests her head on his shoulder. He
is her strength. He is there for her, as always and now.
At one point he stands, takes her arm and guides
her to the washroom. He waits outside, as if guarding
his cherished possession. She is there for him. Always.
All those hours in the ER, he held her hand the
entire time. I know nothing of her ailments or
of their history, but I recognize, can plainly see,
all that is there. Love. In his palm, it is in their
lives. A type of love I do not own, perhaps a kind
of love I might have known. Not here.
This couple, a lifetime of love that keeps them
holding hands, in sickness and in health. Closer
now. Till death do them part. Patience, even
through the commotion of the ER and all they
have experienced in life. Love. Time matters
not, when you have the patience required.
I’m like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
4 replies on “Of Patience and Pain”
Your portrait of love in this piece – unconditional and unassuming between the elderly couple-is beautifully gentle and full of compassion, much like I saw between my parents in their later years.
Thank you for this Wednesday inspiration.
AB
Beautiful and so relatable. Thank you.
Incredibly beautiful J.g.
thank you Sunshine . . .