On New Year's Eve

A cold is a cold is a cold
But not when you have Lupus
It is a beautiful day outside
Golden and silver lights on a breeze,
A breeze I cannot feel
A natural beauty beyond me
Trapped as I am in pain;
No painful oblivion am I accorded
No heady drugged state do I lie in
No, I am aware of everything
Although I begin
to feel the collapse of sense -
I am struggling with pounding heart
and shaking hand
and aching back and legs
and outside the faint song of bird
and rumble of train
and tapping of spoon against cereal bowl,
I hear it all
and sometimes see nothing at all
in the darkened room
As the world rushes by
and life is lived on
New Year's Eve.

31 dec 1997