38.3

Temperature rising..rising...
My own spirit plumetting...plumetting...
down to the deepest recesses
of the unknown...what I fear the most ...

But it will end,
the nightlong vigil,
the holding on to his tiny hand,
the quivering of my own flesh,
the sweat from the humid room,
all warm from his fever...

It will end,
his agony...all my own...

Tomorrow, he will be up again,
celebrate his childhood --
forbidden just yet.












Oh, to be a mother. Gabriel is sick. Fever doesn't go down from 38. I am paranoid. I worry like hell. I pray, trust God. But just can't help it. I know that sounds very contradictory but wacthing my son weak and helpless takes the better of me -- all the time. What is helping me cope are my sisters, my own mother, a few close friends, my husband, and the knowledge that God loves Gabriel more than I do.


PS: One of the articles we published in Misyon was an article from mother whose daughter had a dengue fever. She wrote a really nicely written poem about it and I was thinking of that poem while I wrote this one above. Have to find it and share it here, really clear, vivid description of a mother's agony over her sick child.

OVER THE CLOUDS

No, I didn't fly anywhere lately. It's just that some of my friends here, my only avid fans, I think, have been clamouring (see tag board) for my entries. And I am just so damn busy with work, that I don't have any choice but to repost this poem below. Wrote it a few years back, after my first plane ride. So there you have it guys, just to entertain you a bit, in the meantime.


Today I fly
and try to touch the heavens,
getting intimate with thoughts
and secrets hidden in the clouds.

Beyond the ideology
of my non-conformist heart,
it is compelled to follow
where my mind wants
to break free...

Here, over the clouds,
over the present pains,
over the contagious, anemic world,
I swim through the magic
that I cannot touch,
but could only understand.