Bookends I and II

Processing a year marked by death and disorder all around

Bookends I: Books That Describe Hell

 

This is what I learned

Last Saturday, when they called me

to attend a stranger dying alone

in a hospital bed, in a country

not his own:

The human body can take

a lot more than the human

heart and mind. If you want to know

how efficiently your town is

being governed, visit its ER and

measure waiting times with a

stopwatch or sundial. Or hourglass.

Purgatory smells a lot like sepsis.

Hell is the basic love and kindness

we deny the other on earth, the one

who does not look like us.

Damnation is as easy to define as

counting beds and equipment

and measuring neglect in decibel

levels of suffering- the withholding

of analgesia when transition

is imminent. Sometimes, when you

least expect it, angels are called

for you. Other times, you are

one called to bring the angels.

 

 

Bookends II: The Organization of Purgatory on the Shelves of the Human Heart

 

It has been 6 months

bookended by deaths, upon

which we shelved works of sorrow-

anthologies detailing narrations

of traumas and shame of nations.

There is no breathing space. I bury

a friend, and one of my countries

buries 300 countrymen in a tomb

carved of ash. I stand vigil at the

deathbed of a virtual stranger, and

my other country locks our children

in cages made from cement and

and hatred. My friends say,

you need to sleep sometimes,

but I am left asking, what rest can

there be; when 1 of every 3 people

on both sides, want to exterminate

a race? I feel all systems of decency

collapsing around me, around us.

I awaken in panic, not remembering

where I am. Wondering how long

it will be before I go to bed

in a cage, or in the Hell someone else

thinks I deserve, for my accent,

or for the color of my hair, grained

like maple in the bookshelves

of human remembrance and mercy.

 

 

Author's Note

Last Saturday, I was called by the branch of the national hospital in our city, because a foreigner dying alone had my business card in his wallet, and the hospital had no idea how to contact his family, collect his belongings. They could not even provide treatment because the person who dropped him off, the hostel owner where he was living, did not provide the right documentation. Three of us stood vigil with a dying stranger, because a kind nurse in Guatemala thought to call us hoping someone would come in and just be there for the guy. He died 2 hours after we arrived, in incredible pain, terrible conditions- but at least not alone. Two people stayed with him while i handled the calls to the tourist agency and embassy. A sad and strange day, bookending what has been 3 months of death and devastation for us, on all sides.

Reviews

[bob, small b. aka invs]

the situation in the good ol' usa isn't good these days. hate and fear and lies now hold the power and infect the whole country. i'm sure you understand this on an even deeper level, better knowing the targets of a lot of the hatred and lies. brown children and grown ups suffer from the policies of a country under siege from its own leaders. my condolences for those you've lost. let's hope and pray and work for better days.

[Onlyme]

Wonderfully expressed sincere and honest spoken from the heart about health care politics and people from foreign lands seeking a safe place to live and grew, but majority die due to ill ways of this planet and so-called humans in authority who control us all.

[John the Baptist]

Very powerful. The imagery could have been created by Dante. Well done.