‘Watchful Waiting’ in Central Park: A Poem
But waiting for what?
“Watchful Waiting” in Central Park
March first cloud-scrim sky
pale moonlike sun glacial gusts
fog-glazed trees shiver
Old man with new cane
takes a break on a hard bench —
stiff-legged mutt stalks past
When lymphoma came
to stay it called in a voice
I heard as my own:
Diagnosis bleeds
into prognosis… How long
do you want to live?
Witch-hazel’s sudden
yellow points the way out of
these wintry confines.
* Chinese witch-hazel,
Hamamelis mollis
aka “winterbloom”