In the darkness I lay
as I try to allow my mind
to escape into sleep
if just for a moment
as the chaos of disease unfolds.
The girl child rings;
my pager just another
squealing and vibrating apparatus
breaking the silence of the night
in this cathedral of suffering.
A harvest has occurred:
organs plucked like ripe fruit
from the human vine
as one life extinguishes in the night
another hopes for a few more breathes
of this acrid hospital air.
The ability to expire
has once again been decreed;
an irony as life
has already passed his last breath
through those verdant trees.
A question lingers on my mind
far from my tongue
as those with this healing power
appear to deny the reality
that death lives on in each
resurrected soul.
I ponder now
that when this structure falls,
when technology fails us,
and future civilizations examine
what transpires in these halls of healing,
will my life be
an abomination?
