Patience, patience

It is so hard to be patient, we always want to get going, get to the next thing. I sit in movies and other performances just wishing they were over, even when I am enjoying the show, but for what reason? I am going nowhere, so I remind myself to be in the now.

Last week, I think Thursday, I got a call from the doc's office telling me to get to French Hospital Radiology and they can get this CT scan done, so I go right away, get there at 2:07. And I wait, and wait, and wait, and finally they come in at 3:45 with 1.5 liters of dye I have to drink first, and they put in an IV line for the other dye that gets injected. I have to wait an hour after I drink the Super Slurpee, which is not slurpy, so chug-a-lug, bug.

Not bad but not tasty. The first half liter goes quick, but then my guts are in protest. I haven't eaten lunch, since I raced over for the test. Anyways, I get out of there around 5:15, stop at Subway, and fill the dead hole in my gullet. I have lost 15 pounds in the last 6 weeks, back down to 160, and losing a lot of muscle. I am such a lump. Typing this is tiring me out.

So I am a patient, and I must be patient. At least I always have something to read, and my phone can entertain me, it is so smart! Sometimes I try to get my hands on the remote for the waiting room TV, sometimes I do get it. The world of being a patient is not like reality. You hold no cards, and complaining will slow it all down. Now I am waiting for the results of that CT scan, and what it will tell us about the next steps. I am staying in my seat, nibbling rubbery popcorn, while the credits roll. I try to pronounce the names of the best boys and their buddies.

The Writing Through Cancer prompt this week was to write about the worlds we move in and out of, so I wrote this:

Worlds

The worlds that I live in
all have a place in my galaxy,
in my universe.
In my yard is a world of flowers and birds,
roses and gardenias.
The pink roses are their own little worlds,
smelling like a sorority house on Friday night,
like sirens of the garden.
My wife is my most special world;
her atmosphere is all I need,
she is all pink roses and fresia and honeysuckle,
drawing me into orbit about her.
My house is a world of puttering,
of fixing things, of gluing and cleaning
and making everything right.
When I head out my driveway I enter
a world of near chaos, barely kept alive
by the rules of the road,
all these asteroids of karma and aura
colliding in space.
When I enter the hospital world I
gird my loins, gear for battle.
In this world I must be most careful,
to protect what is left of me, my essence,
and not get lost in the pain and the
knowledege of what is to come.
Billions of galaxies, countless planets,
God everywhere, all-knowing, all-powerful,
worlds of worlds.
If energy cannot be created or destroyed,
when I leave these close-by worlds,
my essence will experience the
worlds beyond, no longer constrained by
worlds of hunger, thirst, love and pain.

So everyone be patient, be here now, enjoy this day in spite of the pain.

What I've Learned

They run this series in Esquire magazine called 'What I've Learned.' It is my favorite recurring article. One issue of the magazine was filled with 'What I've Learneds'. These are from a wide variety of people, star and non-stars, and are always entertaining and enlightening. The archive is here:
http://www.esquire.com/search/fast_search?search_term=what%20i%27ve%20learned&click=try&srchtyp=system&link=whativelearned-try

So I thought I would try to figure out what I've learned. With all this chemo hammering away at me for 5 years, I should've written 'What I Forgot,', but that is too hard, and ongoing to boot. I hope I am still learning, but here is what I have:

What I’ve Learned: John Fiore Ill at ease, 55, San Luis Obispo

· Learn how to deal with your anger and save yourself a lot of misery.
· If you have a problem, admit it, then you can start to fix it.
· Never smoke that first cigarette.
· Love your country; fear your government.
· Get in on the ground floor of a new business if you can. If the company has a good idea, take stock options in lieu of salary.
· Work at what you love, forget about the money.
· You can fix many appliance breakdowns yourself with a simple part. The people at the parts store can guide you, and the internet can help quite a bit.
· Read the manual.
· Tell your wife how beautiful she is every day, and how much you love her.
· The egg came first. The hen was almost a chicken, but the egg had a mutation that was the next step to what we genetically define as a chicken.
· Shit doesn’t just happen; you have to eat first. So watch what you eat.
· Forgive your parents for their mistakes, and make fewer of them yourself.
· It doesn’t hurt to ask.
· It’s OK to have crazy thoughts, as long as you recognize they are crazy and let them slip out of your mind.
· Most drivers are distracted. Watch out.
· You can’t judge a book by its cover, or by its author for that matter.
· You have to laugh at yourself when you screw up. Just don’t screw up too often.
· When you are really tempted to violate a major trust, remember your core values. Realize what will be lost if you choose 15 minutes of fun over a lifetime of love.
· The more friends you have, the more hands there will be to lift you up when you need lifting.
· Tell your kids that you love them, unconditionally. Hug them and encourage them to follow their dream.
· The most painful thing you can endure, physically, is second-degree burns.
· We all will die eventually, so find a way to face death without fear. Don’t dwell on death, but enjoy each day as best you can.
· Cherish the ones you cherish.
· Offer support when you can and it will come back to you when you need it.
· Tamp down the ego; listen more and talk less. Be interested in other people’s stories. · Driving is an act of faith, faith in the other drivers.
· Music lightens the soul.
· People are very diverse in how they perceive the world. Very few things are black or white, so don’t assume what you see and believe is the same as what others see and believe. Respect other viewpoints.
· Blood is thicker than water.
· In the end, all your physical beauty and prowess will leave you. You must still love that person in the mirror.
· Travel light.
· Being a savant at Jumble is worthless if you can’t get on Wheel of Fortune.
· Do what the doctors tell you.

God

‘God is a concept by which we measure our pain.’ John Lennon

Lennon explained to Rolling Stone that, "pain is the pain we go through all the time," Then added: "You're born in pain. Pain is what we are in most of the time, and I think that the bigger the pain, the more God you look for." Maybe he was right, because I have been thinking about God much more in the last 8 months, trying to reconcile how I felt about God concepts.

I woke up early this morning, and I was tossing around all that I don’t know and can never know about God. Many, many people have offered to pray with me, to offer up their connectivity to God, in an effort to heal me. My brother has enlisted thousands of Hispanic women in southern New Mexico to pray for me, and my Mom has her entire condo complex and her church praying for me. Many of my friends and supporters are praying for my return to health, and I am happy they are all doing so. I feel supported and loved.

In one study reported in the New York Times, being prayed for by strangers made you less healthy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?_r=1&ei=5070&en=2d2202b52abff4f4&ex=1143954000&pagewanted=print
I do not believe strangers can harm someone by praying for them, but more that the unhealthy person being prayed for feels unhealthier because so many people are praying for them, therefore they are really sick.

I am not a religious person, and I do not intend to offend any of you that are. My concept of God is of an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-present entity, within me, within you, within everything. An incomprehensible entity. When I pray to God, I am asking for the God within me to help me face my fears and guide me in my choices.

I have met people on this journey that seemed to be more connected to God, something in their aura, their empathy. A few were religious, others not. The local chaplain came in when I first went into the hospital recently, and said that he saw I had stated ‘no religion.’ He asked if I was atheist, and I said no, only spiritual. He told me I was agnostic, and that meant I was without knowledge, as ‘gnos’ is the latin root for knowledge. I suppose he is correct, except he said it meant I had no knowledge of Christ.

According to Wikipedia:
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable.

Gnosticism (Greek: γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge) refers to diverse, syncretistic religious movements in antiquity consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that the cosmos was created by an imperfect god, the demiurge with some of the supreme God's pneuma; this being is frequently identified with the Abrahamic God, (as opposed to the Gospel according to the Hebrews)

So given that I cannot conceive of an imperfect God, if you must categorize me, call me agnostic. The chaplain also told me that of the major religions, Christianity was the one that offered hope, because they have never found the body of Christ, therefore he still walks among us. I find it hard to believe that in these times, Christ has not spoken up. The chaplain left me with the feeling that he was trying to win an argument, and I disappointed him by not engaging. I did not get any feeling from him that he cared about my soul.

I have met people on this journey that seemed to hold a special connection to the God within us and around us, who had an aura of empathy and of caring. When I was in the hospital a few weeks ago, I had a nurse that was very efficient and very soft-spoken. She knew that I was struggling with my illness, and one morning around 3am she came to take vitals, and I was awake. When she finished her tasks she asked, ‘Will you pray with me?’ I said yes, and she took my hand in hers, and I prayed, ‘God, please grant us the wisdom to save our earth from the ravages of man, to save people from themselves.’ Or something like that. I looked at her and thought, ‘She is an angel!’ She was very beautiful, perfect in every way, Filipina, with hair like silk and tawny skin, almond eyes. In her accented English, she prayed for my healing, and for a place for me in heaven, and closed with an Our Father. I tried to remember that prayer, and mostly succeeded.

When she left I felt she had helped me open the lines to the God within me. I have met other people like her, that seem more connected, and some of those I have met are religious people. The problem I have with religion is not with individuals, it is with a religion’s belief systems. Go forth and multiply; ignore the impact on your planet.

Historically, religion has caused, and still causes, great pain and suffering worldwide. The great religions seem locked in a war to conquer the earth for their belief system, by spreading their word over other words, by killing indigenous peoples with disease, by crusades and inquisitions, by outright wars. When our Christian president declared war on Iraq, based on incorrect information that there were WMDs and a link to Al Qaeda, he ignored ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ He opened Pandora’s Box, and now the Sunnis and the Shiites are killing each other for their religions. The Jewish people have been put through all sorts of misery for their beliefs.

There have been seven years without war worldwide in the last 2000. These wars are fought for property, domination and religion. So I am unable to embrace any religion, but rather just to embrace God as I know God, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, incomprehensible. I thank God for this fabulous planet and this great life, and pray that we don’t destroy it. God created this fantastic universe, with billions of galaxies, trillions of solar systems, and we are supposed to evolve gracefully here on earth, but are struggling. Pray for mankind to wake up and stop the destruction.

Imagine by John Lennon

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

I wrote all that yesterday, and now it is Sunday. I ran a nice fever of 100.8 and had chills last night, and have chills now even though it is 72 degrees in here. I am so weak I can barely get off the toilet. That doesn't matter, par for the course (of chemo), because the Celtics are playing in Orlando in one hour. Go Celtics!

Tunnels of Cu Chi

Remember Vietnam, when we would kill a whole bunch of VC, but then a whole bunch more would crop up a little later? And we kept saying, ‘We’re winning, we’re winning!’ I am Vietnam, and the leukemia in my body is the VC. Sure, we won the battle at the Pancreas, but the problem is the VC are hiding, they are in tunnels, staying safe from chemo and radiation until the battle passes over, they hide in my brain and in my testes. And they looked just like the villagers, which played on our minds.

They are prepping their weapons with new protein coats to camouflage them from our attacks. As many aerial photos as we take showing there are no VC, they are there, waiting in the tunnels. I know we all wanted to celebrate that unexpected victory when leukemia disappeared from my pancreas, and it was elating, but now we have to march back to the front.

All my counts are good right now, slightly anemic. I met with my doc yesterday, to formulate a plan of attack, or the leukemia will be back in 6 months or so. There are essentially two options, neither all that tasty.

Option 1:
Embark on Donor Leukocyte Infusion. Fly Lisa out to Stanford, extract leukocytes (WBCs), and infuse them into me.
Pros
· If DLI works, we have long-term success. Odds are 10% that it will work.
Cons
· <10% chance of success
· At Stanford maybe long-term with complications
· “50% chance of post DLI acute GVHD (bad enough gvhd to warrant admission for nutritional support and skin care ...and high dose steroids and other meds etc.. of which many patients die)” doc
· If the DLI is too low a dose then it is a waste of time
· “Little Graft Versus Leukemia from DLI with acute lymphoblastic leukemia”
· “Tough call on what to do: the odds favor medical complications without much chance for benefit.” Doc

Option 2:
Aggressive chemotherapy first week of month, then three weeks of maintenance, ad continuum. This will give me maybe two years and become increasingly ineffective.
Pros
· Buys time, maybe one, outside chance for two years before leukemia kills me
· I can stay home
Cons
· Effects of chemo
· Possible hospital time
· 20% gvhd

In essence, do I take a 10% chance at long-term (1-10+ years) with a 10% chance of death, or do I muddle along with chemo and hope that in the next two years we have more cures (stem cells maybe)?

What a quandary, and I must decide by Monday; time is slipping and the enemy is in their tunnels prepping. I just talked to the doctor at Stanford to clarify a few things, and he had never seen a successful DLI with ALL, and said many hospitals won’t try it because it doesn’t work and leaves the patient in the hospital and then they die. At the end of our conversation I told him I was leaning toward the chemo route. He said that was a heroic decision but a good one, the DLI route is such a long shot with ALL.

So I have felt like I was facing death, and aren’t we all, but I guess I am choosing some quality of remaining life versus lying in a hospital bed. I know I have been lucky so far rolling the dice with leukemia, but sooner or later the odds bite you.

On a cheery note, I am almost finished restoring the garage to a TV/gaming room, where I will engage in swordplay and bowling with the family. I have nicer furniture in the garage than I had in the first 15 years after college! I still have a little work to do, but closer and closer each day.

Huh?

Saturday
Have you ever set the DVR to record an event, and then started watching an hour late so that you could skip the commercials? So I did that with the Celtics Friday, only it didn't record because of operator error, and when I tuned it in live, it was in the second quarter and the game was over, Celtics down by 25 and playing like they were beat. That is nothing like my life.

Well, and home at last. I checked out of the hospital yesterday at 10:30, my WBCs rocking the house at 12.7, normal is 4-11, I do love the neupogen shots. So no mask, no neutropenia, walk on out the door. Hallelujah and praise God! It feels like a little miracle, and I hope it keeps feeling this way, dodged not a bullet, but a John-seeking missile!

Tuesday
Don’t know what happened, hit a time skid, been too busy to finish the post. I woke this morning and I am losing my voice and have a sore throat, but no fever, maybe just mucositis or Vfend.

Seen that show ‘Hoarders’ that is airing? My garage looks like that, or did. My kind in-laws and friends moved most of my stuff out of my bachelor pad, and into my garage, a few weeks back. For some reason that I don’t remember, I was not very involved, probably strapped to the bed by Dana. So I am trying to reintegrate some things, and having a general reorganization of things.

Things are a pain in the ass. They clutter our lives, and then break. I wrote this a while back, but it needs something, like an edit.

Things

These things we surround ourselves with,
these cars and boats and bikes,
campers and TVs and RVs and
computers and Cuisinarts and dryers,
they are all anchors, they are barriers.
They weigh us down, hold us in place,
our boat cannot sail, our balloon cannot soar,
we can’t lift off to the heavens.
We are anchored, we fear for our stuff,
we put up walls and signs,
‘Stay Away, don’t touch my stuff.’
We hope for adventure and love,
and hide behind walls, anchored in place,
guarding our stuff,
and then we melt into the earth
and are forgotten.
All we leave behind is a toxic smear,
a twisted blob
of metal and plastic.


Today I will finish up moving stuff around in the garage, and go finish up moving out of the serene place I was in. Spackle. Vacuum. I need a buyer for that big kitchen table I love and for the home gym, or my storage nightmare will be escalated.

All in all, I feel OK healthwise, pretty weak and wobbly, and that Vfend is nasty stuff. I reread the side effects this morning, which included agitation, anxiety and confusion, and I am certainly experiencing some of those effects, especially in talking. I am speaking in dyslexic sort of, but only at times. The damage to my tongue isn’t helping. So, less talk, less bark.

Care for a Slice?

Last night my doc came in about 8:00 pm, and said he had looked at the CT scan from 2 days earlier, and he did not see any masses in my pancreas. !!!!!!! Before we get too jubilant, he wants to put that scan side-by-side with the scan from two weeks ago and really stare it down. Also, the recent scan shows four spots forming on my lungs. Since it is unlikely that new cancer formed while I was getting chemotherapy, it is most likely a fungal infection. Test results have shown Candida albicans in my sputum, but that fungus is also common in the mouth, as ‘thrush,’ so this is not definitive.

This does mean some change in course. The infection in the lungs must be dealt with first, so we are testing and treating with different anti-fungals. We will be serving a nice pizzaioli funghelli this Friday, so sign up quick, especially you Mike F., know how you love the fungi.

The pizza party means that we stall the next chemo treatment until all the pie is gone, which is too bad since we had good results, and which is not bad because I was dreading going through this again. I just don’t want to lose our progress, and at the same time I was thinking if I had to do this again real soon it might kill me.
None of this very definitive as yet, and my doc is working diligently. He came back from Army Reserve in Alaska and jumped right into his patient list and then hospital list. He and his partners are overworked and stressing their family lives, and I am glad they’re on my side.

My blood counts are coming back, WBC at 2.4, RBC at3.36, platelets at 8. I am getting a transfusion of platelets right now. I think the hair will start falling out this weekend, only few hairs on the tug test. I ate pancakes and ham for breakfast, and it was OK, a little dry, so my mouth is recovering. I have been living on yogurt and oatmeal and Ensure, and amazingly have not lost any weight. Maybe it’s the limited pooping.

I am still keeping most visitors out, and Dana and I are enforcing the closed doors policy. The WBCs are getting close to minimal normal, so I hope to go home before I lose my single room.

I had to make this to keep it all straight:

Chronology of events
4/19 check into hosp. for chemo.; methotrexate, 6000mg
4/19 cytarabine, 4000 mg
4/20 cytarabine, 4000 mg
4/20 cytarabine, 4000 mg
4/21 cytarabine, 4000 mg
4/22 check out 8am but by the afternoon 102.8 fever, collapse, back to hosp. ER 8:30 pm, re-admitted 11:00 pm
4/23-4/25 in hosp. battling fevers (from chemo. or infection)
4/25 released from hosp.
4/26 Brother Frankie arrives to help--feeling pretty good mostly
4/29 Starting to head towards nadir, feeling weak and tired, mouth sores
4/30 wake with 101.5 fever, Dana calls doc who says go to ER. Preparing to go I collapse onto floor; thanks to Frank and Dana for catching me.
Ambulance ride to hospital.
5/1-3 Still in the hospital at nadir--this is the worst of it
5/4- present I am still in hospital but getting better. Maybe out Friday.

Steady On

Out of emotion, no exulting,
no tumbling, no yelling,
no passion, stay clinical.
It’s all getting so timeworn,
I should be feeling more feelings.
But I am still stuck in here,
my legs are weak, my back hurts,
and I don’t want to get elated
and then thrashed,
so I will keep it all tamped down for now,
and you should too.

Golden Moments

A post from John! He was obviously feeling better today. Fingers crossed that we've seen the worst of the first round. Dana...

Here's John:

Life is so full of wonderful moments, and each of them make the path to dying easier.
My son just came by to visit, and we were making idle chatter, and I was trying to offer any support I could give for what we are going through. He pondered our lives together, and he said he had no issues, no regrets, and I started thinking of all the golden moments.

I remember him blessing me with meconium poop when he was hours old, and the blessings just kept coming. I started remembering these special moments aloud, and the tears started flowing out of me, and he came to hug me and join in a cathartic moment. Wow, I think he’ll be okay.

Lots of action today. I had a sharp pain, like a bruised right rib, at 12 last night, so of course I instantly get the EEG. Third time in 2 weeks. No heart problems until I start removing the stickies. Yowza. Today they removed the PICC line just in case it is infected. I got the first shower in a week, fresh clothes and linens. It sounds morbid, but Dana and I worked on the Last Will and Testament, which is more work than I thought. I can’t decide which piece of Jade to give Lia. And who wants my underwear? Johnny?

It was good to see John over the weekend, he seems to be doing well, but he does need new underwear. I have been drifting in and out of fevers. My blood counts are creeping upward, still neutropenic. My mouth is killing me, so don’t call, I ain’t answering. Also, I know that Dana was critical of the local hospital because they don’t do things as they were done at Stanford. Dana is very much the women defending her man, letting every one know that we have power and knowledge, and we’re not afraid to use it.

In defense of this Hospital, it is a small regional hospital that offers a wide range of services to the community. They get a limited number of patients like me every year. It will be ok. The up side of being here is that I get to be near to friends and family.


The way has been swept of thorns and burrs,
and a carpet of goose feathers and talcum
sprinkled where I walk the path.
These physical pains I have along the way
are only reminders, of the golden moments that I shared
with all of you along the way.

Update from Dana

Just a quick update because I know some of you worry when you don't hear anything.

John remains in the hospital this morning because they haven't been able to get his fever under control. He is on several IV antibiotics and now they have added an antifungal but his fever keeps coming back as his dose of Tylenol wears off. They are afraid he has some kind of infection, but frankly, they seem somewhat stumped. Last night they drew blood from his PICC line and more directly from his other arm to see if the source of infection is the PICC line itself. The PICC site has been red and angry looking for more than a week now.

Not to knock our local hospital, but from my perspective, what a difference from Stanford. John is in an isolation room because he is so at risk for infection. When I got there yesterday, both doors (inner and outer) of his room were propped open with garbage cans and soiled linen bins. Why? It seems that they were not able to make his room comfortably warm when the doors were closed so their solution was to prop the doors to the halls open so that the warm air could rush in from the rest of the (presumably germ laden) hospital. No one was bothering to wear masks or gowns. Maintenance people and housekeepers were in and out of the room, while John was there, without washing hands. His neutropenic diet includes things that were forbidden at Stanford (dairy for example) and showers have to be ordered by the doctor. I miss the team of doctors that came in twice a day at Stanford too. John seems to think that standards have changed for neutropenic patients, and doesn't want to ruffle the feathers of the hands that feed him, so to speak, but I am ready to go in there and kick some a** and take some names. I think I already have a reputation there as the grumpy, demanding wife.

Apart from the fever battle, John is battling boredom and depression. I think he is growing tired of all this and his warrior attitude is fading as he endures day after day of discomfort and isolation. I keep reminding him that this is his nadir week (or ten days) and that he is expected to feel better soon. Wednesday is hump day with any luck. I think they will scan the masses next week at some point too, and hopefully, give us some good news to boost our spirits. Meanwhile, I have been passing on your good wishes, reading him your blog comments and his email daily. Both seem to lift his mood a little so thank you, again, to those of you who are taking the time to let us know that you’re thinking of us. Email is probably the best way to reach him right now. He gets it on his phone. His email is jclfiore@gmail.com

If I sound tired and cranky it’s because I am. It is incredibly difficult to see someone you love go through this, and this is not the first time for me. Cancer has shadowed me much of my life. Some of you know I lost my mom to cancer after a 15 year battle about thirty years ago. I am watching my boys going through some of what I experienced back then and it’s bringing it all back to me. I want to try to take care of them too. All this pulling in many directions, lack of sleep, stress, worry, and anxiety are getting to me. I have arranged to take this week off from work, probably a good thing, but I miss my little kiddos already. They are the bright part of my life right now and when I’m with them I forget my troubles for a while. They are in good hands with the trusted teacher that filled in for me two years ago while we were up at Stanford. Thank you, Teri!

OK, so this update has turned out to be not so quick. Our cancer writing coach, Sharon Bray says writing “helps you to make sense of things and to cope more effectively with the emotional roller coaster” that cancer brings. And she would know. So here it is. I’m sorry I don’t have John’s sense of humor about this. I guess we all deal with it in our own way. Some better than others. Hopefully, John will be back writing here soon.

Long, wide turn

Dana again here, typing for John this time. His words:

I’m still in the hospital, it’s Saturday morning. I got here yesterday after an exciting morning, especially for the neighborhood kids getting on the bus as the fire truck and ambulance responded to Dana’s 911 call. Slight fever and chills. Nothing new really, just a reaction to the chemo and a little longer nadir than I had hoped for.

Since my WBCs are at .1 we are really holding back on visitors and since I can’t talk without pain, I’m not really answering the phone, so I am isolated. What else is there to say? Thank you for all your support. Today I will leave you with a poem I wish I’d written because it made Dana cry when she read it to me. It’s from the Writer’s Almanac.

Blackbirds
by Julie Cadwallader Staub

I am 52 years old, and have spent
truly the better part
of my life out-of-doors
but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head
a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air

and when I turned my face upward
I saw a flock of blackbirds
rounding a curve I didn't know was there
and the sound was simply all those wings
just feathers against air, against gravity
and such a beautiful winning
the whole flock taking a long, wide turn
as if of one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

Oh if we lived only in human society
with its cruelty and fear
its apathy and exhaustion
what a puny existence that would be

but instead we live and move and have our being
here, in this curving and soaring world
so that when, every now and then, mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives
and when, even more rarely, we manage to unite and move together
toward a common good,

and can think to ourselves:

ah yes, this is how it's meant to be.