Escaped Surgery Patients!

Wounded by wrongs, real or false, I know
For treatment I must to the doctor go. 
There answers cut open my heart like knives,
And a fount of forgiveness freely I may imbibe.

But oft' when ill feelings’ have found their source—
Her indifference to regard me as I like, of course—,
I recoil at the image in this 'luminating mirror 
And assign this diagnosis to another who’s near.

“Perhaps that’s why she's so hostile to me—
No accolades I sing her, no recognition's free.
And I with her censures cannot agree.
She too must need insight for errors to see.”

“Maybe I can play doctor on her soul with this light,
And charge not a penny for my wise insight.
Just a simple apology and the esteem I deserve
For diagnosis and operation on what I observe.”

Thus I by my scruples decode then her own
Neglecting that heart where insight's been shown:
The heart I call mine that leapt off the table
After doctor’s incision this vision enabled.

“The Lord won't etherize his patients,” devils say,
“Nor ties them down for the operation each day.
So lure them off before treatment commences,
And they to each other will be quite senseless.”

“Lure them with the gore that they see in each other,
With fault-finding, a past time aimed at a brother.
Seduce them out the door with a tantalizing mystery,
To find blame elsewhere but call it psychohistory.”

Then “STOP!” says a voice, a helper inside.
And I cease roving and look back wide-eyed. 
My wounds leave a trail to where the doctor still stands
In the operating room with my blood on his hands.

Must I with cut flesh to the table thus crawl,
When I have no heart but my own to o'erhaul?
And nodding to the doctor for him to proceed,
He'll operate simultaneously upon millions in need.

I’ll know not what he finds in family and friends
In the souls of this Body waiting to be cleansed.
Yet their blood with mine mingles in this joint operation
As we lay side by side in this, our salvation.

But if I flee the ward again and meet you in the halls,
Let's not wield plastic scalpels or push each other 'gainst the walls.
Let’s smile sheepishly and with courage understand
That we go best under the knife when we go hand in hand.

Comments

Grandma Seelye said…
Such a clever analogy about the Lords discipline! Love your writing and ideas!
Laura Provencio said…
I love the last line of your poem. So true!!!