The nearest place to investigate,
Diagnose, prognosticate
Is an hour by plane
Or six by boat and train.
I return with my fate
Determined by purple slide and X ray plate.
My plan?
Do nothing.
For what, in reality, can be done to improve my lot?
My life is here, on the Atlantic rock;
Not staying with city strangers
While therapy is tried
To stop the cells divide.
So I come home
For the last time,
With knowledge gained
And my destiny claimed.
Yet this won’t stop me from sitting
In my window, looking across the bay here
In all lights and weathers, knitting
Images from across the years:
Thoughts, memories, sayings, songs
Into a family patterned tweed
For all to read.
An intricate design
Demonstrating the complex interweaving of life
That has been mine.
Jo Hansen 