*****

Recorded Reading (3:29): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gk3ch9n59oagct5r7hm8g/No-Higher-Belief.mp3?rlkey=v1cc8mslgq3ojuk2lc54yto1i&dl=0

*****

No Higher Belief

I read about a man who died, last night
Though blessed in this: he knew his end was nigh
Given time for the retrospective gaze
Lingering on a kiss, a song, a sigh…

Seeing him wipe away a quiet tear
The nurse assigned to hover near his bed
Inquired what might be done for him to help ~
He smiled, whimsic’ly, then he shook his head

“I think it is impossible for me
Confined this sterile hospital within
My last desire indeed to realize,
The assuagement of my yearning win”

Moved by compassion at his wistful words
The nurse would not give up so easily
She yet inquired of his true deep desire —
“I’m curious to know what it might be”

“It isn’t much,” he glanced his window out
“To be without it shouldn’t make me frown:
I only wish to have a glass of wine,
A cigarette, and watch the sun go down…”

The nurse considered possibility
Of loss of her so hardly-won career
And asked herself which she prioritize
Was it compassion, or would it be fear?

She spent her lunchtime purchasing the wine
Then bought the cigarettes — his preferred brand —
She put them in the plainest paper bag
And brought them both back to the dying man

Afterward keeping vigil in the hall
Her quiet opportunity to see
She then professionally wheeled his bed
Out onto a secluded balcony

She poured the wine, and his tobacco lit
Then stood beyond his shoulder as he basked
The mellow rays of his last sunset in
Considerate, diffidently she asked

If he would like a picture taken of
That moment of compassion for us all —
Perhaps elsewhere stimulating its like —
Before she wheeled his bed back down the hall

And that is how I saw what she had seen
From slightly back, preserving modesty,
The man, the bed, the glass of wine and the
Last lovely sunset he would ever see

Long live that nurse, say I, and long career!
May she receive what she gives: happiness —
She would not pander to her selfish fear
When she had opportunity to bless

A trembling spirit with such sweet relief;
To smooth the way last, hardest passage of —
When tested, she followed highest belief
And found there no belief higher than love

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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