Afflicted by the dragging minutes that turn into hours
Living With Cancer: Waking in the Dark
By SUSAN GUBAR, NYT
A slant of light bifurcates the bedroom ceiling. Its source, a night light in the bathroom, slices through the ceiling fixture, slivering all the way to the far corner over my side of the bed. Before cancer, I slept through the night. Now, I wake in the dark because of the pull of stitches, the pain of drains or the need to empty some bulb or bag attached to my body.
While I lie gazing at this shaft of light, I am pierced by what the poet Philip Larkin called the "arid interrogation." When and where will the disease progress? Will I die in pain? Who will be there for me? Regret and remorse crowd in as well: time misused, love not given amply enough, opportunities squandered, acts of good will stalled or aborted. Next swarm the worries about those I hold dear.
No poem better expresses my fear of extinction than Larkin's "Aubade." Its title identifies the text as a song about daybreak, but it is the terminal break of "total emptiness forever" that terrifies the poet:
(More here.)
By SUSAN GUBAR, NYT
A slant of light bifurcates the bedroom ceiling. Its source, a night light in the bathroom, slices through the ceiling fixture, slivering all the way to the far corner over my side of the bed. Before cancer, I slept through the night. Now, I wake in the dark because of the pull of stitches, the pain of drains or the need to empty some bulb or bag attached to my body.
While I lie gazing at this shaft of light, I am pierced by what the poet Philip Larkin called the "arid interrogation." When and where will the disease progress? Will I die in pain? Who will be there for me? Regret and remorse crowd in as well: time misused, love not given amply enough, opportunities squandered, acts of good will stalled or aborted. Next swarm the worries about those I hold dear.
No poem better expresses my fear of extinction than Larkin's "Aubade." Its title identifies the text as a song about daybreak, but it is the terminal break of "total emptiness forever" that terrifies the poet:
-- no sight, no sound,Like me, Larkin must have found himself waking in the dark, afflicted by the dragging minutes that turn into hours.
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
(More here.)
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