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my memories of those months
spent in the hospital
as drew slipped further away
are fuzzy almost nonexistent
the time spent by his bedside
as he lay dormant on a respirator
so sedated he wasn't there was
remarkable for its homogeneity
looking back on those months
is like trying to remember
the moment you fall asleep
or recall each mile marker
on a trip heading east
across kansas a straight line
of seeming sameness
all the while heading
imperceptibly downhill


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Posted by Rob on August 3, 2008
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Rob on whole page :

I am thinking this one might follow the last one about the speaker. I will then follow this one with a poem about how I psychologically protected myself by pouring myself into my rock band. I am planning on that poem ending, as Alexis has suggested, with the chorus of “Carry On Wayward Son.”

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August 3, 2008 7:04 pm
Rob on paragraph 2:

I fudged an extra paragraph for this post so that I could put a comment on the ending. The “heading / imperceptibly downhill” is based on the drive across Kansas image and only symbolically touches on Drew’s condition. I have to admit, here among friends, that this might be my favorite image ever.

Most people don’t realize that Denver, the “mile-high city” is not in the mountains; it’s at the end of the plains east of the Rockies, but its elevation is 5,280 feet. The elevation of Kansas City, KS is around 750 feet, but the drive between them seems flat, yet it’s a slow rise over several hundred miles.

The esoteric subtlety of that might be a problem, but I am thinking of ways to set that up in an earlier poem so that I can get away with not explaining it here.

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August 3, 2008 7:15 pm
sue walker on whole page :

Rob, this is terrific. I especially like the “trying to remember the moment you fall asleep..”
Sue

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August 4, 2008 4:06 am
alexis on whole page :

i agree–the second half of the poem is so powerful, so poignant and well said…it is amazing that something so sad can be described so beautifully. i love this one…

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August 5, 2008 10:31 am
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