I have sat just once
at the deathside bed of a old explorer
While Life yet lingered within him,
After I had chased away
the swaddling nurses
and their comfort pans
Who sought only to ease his pain
with their bandaged ministrations.
I sat and held his hand, while he
simply held on
Then I told him of my day
amid the rising path and trees
Where the sun would not reach until noon
And his stories of which it reminded me
And on this, he rose from the weary frame,
with more life than we knew he still possessed
To admonish me, lovingly: “That? Hell, that was nothing.”
And there he cracked open yet another dusty jar
of the world unknown to me,
and the stories it had taught him
Of the path yet steeper, where no trees grew,
and weather so hard the sun would not be seen
until springtime.
Of how he stood there with his companions
beaten, but victorious
for simply having made it back
“Now – *that* was spectacular. You should see it some day.”
And I promised I would
some day.
…
When I am broken,
And you find me at bedside
with nothing left to cling to
Except my memories
Remember this man, and share with me your day
on the windswept heights
That we may remember it together
and that I
when I go
May go with you
David Pablo Cohn 