Self-Heal

This poem is dedicated to all who have been touched by breast cancer- a reminder to take care of yourselves in these chaotic days.

*****

The wind is starting up after all that rain.

It’s roaring,

and I fear for the trees

though they have no leaves.

It shakes the house in the dark before dawn.

*

I had a mammogram last week

and was called back the next day

to schedule another.

*

The caller asked me if I had any

pain,

swelling,

or discharge

since my last mammogram.

*

Since yesterday? I asked,

then felt guilty for throwing a stone in anger.

She is just doing her job.

I cried as I hung up the phone.

*

I have been through one variation of this routine.

Next came the biopsy,

Then, the person who could not read the pathology report,

Then, the surgeon who could and did.

The first thing she said to me was,

You are not going to die.

*

And I did not. I did not die.

But now I am afraid of these pictures

to the depths of my being.

They do not always accompany the story you want to hear.

I feel nauseous.

*

I sit in a line with four other women,

hope-swathed in pink hospital gowns.

In the little waiting room again,

with the pink table

and the wall, lined with pink ribbons,

In rows like the crosses at Arlington,

each emblazoned with a name in black magic marker

and the length of their reprieve from death to date.

*

Tension draws lines around every breast.

There might be ten,

but no one is counting.

I know,

as a matter of fact,

that one of them is putting up a good facade.

*

And no one ever talks.

I have to break the silence

with a remark about the weather,

and my usual joke to the technician

when she calls me

that men must have designed all the tools used for testing women.

No one ever laughs at this

because somewhere beneath the immediate pain

there is the promise of a longer life.

*

Some of us sitting here will get the all-clear.

Go home and give thanks.

Let all your family give thanks.

Let thanks ring out over all the cities and the countryside

In the water, the earth, the forests, and the air.

*

Some of us sitting here will get the all-clear

after the insertion of a titanium ribbon

nestled in each suspect location,

interior jewelry

to commemorate the anxiety.

Every doctor seeing those medals

will smile in their honor.

*

One in every eight of us are called upon to go into battle,

to be won or to the death.

Since we are only five sitting here,

A selfish hope sprouts

that I am not the eighth, or the sixteenth, or the thirty-second today

as I read through the medicinal uses of self-heal.

I have my scars.

We did not lose any trees in the storm.

*****

Thank you for taking the time to read my work.

From October, 2023-October 2024 I wrote poems during each of the seventy-two micro-seasons of the traditional Japanese calendar using their season titles as inspiration. You can follow my list to read poems in the cycle here with a Medium account. Thank you to Thomas Gaudex, editor at Scribe, and author Alejandra Olivera for introducing me to this beautiful and contemplative ancient calendar.

This current season of winter is called tōji- (冬至) Winter Solstice. It is the fourth of the six winter seasons, hinging on the solstice.

The three micro-seasons of tōji are:

December 22–26 Self-Heal Sprouts- natsukarekusa shōzu (乃東生)

December 27–31 Deer Shed Antlers- sawashika no tsuno otsuru (麋角解)

January 1–4 Wheat Sprouts Under Snow- yuki watarite mugi nobiru (雪下出麦)

The result was clear.

Natalie