Eyeing the Unseyable : Ted Stein

Ted retired from teaching
college English in 1998.
Since retirement, when he
began to make serious daily
efforts, he has found that the
exploratory work of writing
provides clarification of feelings
and a sense of consolation
through connecting one
with the sufferings and joys
of others. During his treatment
for cancer at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering, he was
involuntarily looking for a
reciprocal recognition in a
physician, and by confronting
his internal search was
able to create a vision of how
this might happen and how
it might help heal the spirit.
Except in the face of another.
It’s time. I feel the cold moon-loneliness
of a sailor peering through spray far out from shore.
The doctor now must speak the unspeakable words
and give me a clear sustaining call
over the rocking heart of things.
He stands en face. How odd that he looks
a bit like me. But he’s afraid of my face.
His blank eyes skitter beneath my chin, caught
in a thought-nystagmus looping on itself,
so that I cannot parse or get any help
from the stuttering argot he uses to console
and at the same time flee me while he can.

I turn to my left. In the shadow behind,
a second doctor I didn’t know was there,
in a long white coat hanging open enough
to show her modest cleavage. Her eyes are fixed
on my face, their brown depth asking wordlessly,
“And how is it with you?”
At my back a western wind is freshening fast,
ahead a little squall. I’m ready now.


Original Published Link Eyeing the Unseyable : Ted Stein

#Cancer, #Consolation, #FresheningFast, #HealTheSpirit, #Loneliness #Cancer

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