A Cure

I will die here,

 

The sun is bright,

I wish to shield my eyes

But no strength is left in me,

The disease has stolen my energy,

 

The wind,

It's so cold,

Snow dances into the balcony,

We are left here

To look out on the wilderness,

They leave us here for hours,

They hope it will cure us,

...A cure,

 

I can hear the children playing,

Such a bittersweet sound,

Many of them will die here,

Many of us... will die here,

 

Those I found comfort in

Have been replaced with strangers,

Though the nurses tell me they were cured

I fear I do not believe them,

I did not see them walk out of the entrance,

They took another way out,

One only fit for the dead,

 

I cannot stop coughing,

The crimson liquid that rests on my handkerchief

Tells me that the fresh air is not the right cure for me,

 

...A cure,

That phrase here seems to be drenched

In the smell of death,

If not fresh air

Then they shall put balloons in your lungs,

If that fails,

Removing a few ribs will help,

 

They shield us so,

But I am no fool,

The angel of death perches here,

Filling his belly with the souls of the sick,

He claims this as his home,

This deceiving prison,

My deathbed,

 

I will die here,

Here on Waverly Hill.

 

 

Reviews

[Dr Poet]

Having found out that Waverly Hill is a sanatorium was a way to understand the context of this impressive poem more precisely. But until I reached the very end, I thought the descriptions could suit perfectly, for instance, the feelings of a prisoner in a concentration camp. When any work of art manages to cover a wider range of possible interpretations than just the literal one, then it means the artist has delivered a piece that can be considered universal, addressed to all men's hearts.
I have to admit that it's not something that happens to me frequently on here, but I really loved this poem from the first line till the last one.

[AK]

Very powerful.

[Emily B]

I've heard ghostly stories about that hospital on the hill for several years now. This was a haunting reminder about what death must have looked like there. I'm afraid you couldn't have called it life.