My eyes are going, but not gone

By Ron Riekki

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“Thou hast made me”
--John Donne,
Holy Sonnets

“To be”
--William Shakespeare,
Hamlet

I feel the same thing in my bones, how long
of life I’ve led, so that now it’s starting to feel
as if I belong in hospitals, as if they’re my new
home, and yet I’m created in the image of God,
which makes me think of hurt, of pain, of--
of course—crucifixion, and I am embarrassed
at how it hurts to move, but such a blessing too
to be able to move, to pick up a pen, come back
to my bed, and write this poem, to see the page,
even if my eyes blur, but to have eyes, to have
breath, to have. It is so much having, this body.
Hoping I have love and faith and this strength
and dedication to be good. To have gratitude,
lungs full of it, blood full of it. Gratias tibi.

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Ron Riekki's most recent book is  We're Also Wounded. Right now, he's listening to the John Donne documentary De l'Érotique au Sacré: une vie déchirée.