About poetry

Sylvia Plath.

I don't get most poetry, even though I like to think I have a love of words and their rhythms and I find that most of my favorite novelists also, even primarily, write poems. Read the first page of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and you'll see what I mean. Or much of John Updike's work. Or, for a recent example, News of the World, by Paulette Jiles, a wonderful book.

Maybe I do get poetry when it takes the form of prose, or when it's silly and obvious, made for those unschooled in verse like me.
The first two lines of the below came to me unbidden. It's not poetry, I know, but it has an element of poetry in it, if that makes any sense.

My chondrosarcoma has spread to my lung,
Things do not look good for me.
I’m headed to my life's bottommost rung,
And soon it is death that I’ll see.

Last walks

As the knowledge of my likely death within a year or so due to the chondrosarcoma I have that has now spread to a lung sinks in, keeping it together is becoming more of a challenge. I sleep little, which is

A covered bridge in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

unfortunate as that's the only good escape from my woes. I can barely eat. You always hear that bad news dulls the taste buds, but that's not really true, at least in my case. Things taste the same, they just don't taste good enough to overcome the gloom.
Considering that I will have my right leg amputated within a month or two, I am treasuring my walks more than ever. This link will take you to one of the video recordings I made of myself walking. It might be the least interesting video you ever see.