Ravensong Poetry And Writing Blog by Donovan Baldwin

As a boy, 

Half a hundred years ago,

I lay sleepless, 

Shirtless,

Sweat trickling,

Sheets sticking to me,

The one window of my room open,

Old box fan

Droning in the corner.

I dreamed and imagined all sorts of things,

But never thought

To dream about a cooler place.

In Florida in the Summer, heat was...

And humidity went without saying.

So, each Summer night,

A few steps short of misery, 

I lay awake for hours,

Mind traveling along the corridors

Built by images made from

The books I read incessantly.

Later,

Girls and cars having been discovered,

And cars,

At least,

Conquered,

Hot nights became cooler,

Driving down Palafox Street

With windows down, 

Or,

Out to the Gulf Of Mexico.

Eventually,

Hot Florida nights included

Two A.M. feedings,

And the occasional rush

To an emergency room.

Now, no longer in Florida,

I have air conditioning, 

But...

Still often lie awake,

Sleepless, sticky with sweat, 

As the medicine works

To slow the progress of

The cancer within.

...Which the boy never imagined.

On nights like these,

My mind wanders up and down

Even more corridors, 

Including those built by more books,

And a half century of living.

No more chasing girls

Or driving up and down Palafox,

Or to the bay,

In the moonlight...

Except in my memory,

When I remember...

Hot Florida nights.

Labels: boy, cancer, donovan baldwin, Florida, Gulf Of Mexico, man

By Donovan Baldwin

Early this morning I awoke and lay for a while fuzzily thinking about what I would call "the perspective of time", or, perhaps, "the history of the future".

Sometimes, this perspective is introspective, as in a great little article, which coincidentally, I read a bit later this morning, written by a close friend of mine, Olive Javier, titled "A Hundred Years To Live".

Approaching from a slightly different angle, I was thinking about how time allows us, as different individuals with different perspectives, to see progress and change, not always the same.

For some of us, this is history.

I remember kids in iron lungs, because we could not control Polio.

I remember my premature baby sister dying because, in 1949, we did not have the interventions which kept my grandson, much more premature, alive in 2005.

I remember when the word, "Cancer", was the same as, "This is going to kill you painfully, horribly, and certainly".

These days, I am looking back at "cancer" as a Cancer survivor, as are several members of my family. You don't hear much about iron lungs or Polio these days, and, fortunately, many more premature babies survive, living long and healthy lives.

People living in one era, and of one age, tend to see what is happening now as important, and what is past as ancient history. Well, history affects nations, groups, families, and even individuals directly and indirectly.

You AND I are the "history" of future generations. They cannot go back and re-write history any more than we can.

Maybe the future will turn out better if we write its history correctly in the first place.

Labels: cancer, donovan baldwin, future, history, iron lungs, perspective, Polio