TWO VIEWS OF AN OLD WOMAN’S LEG
She sprained it, climbing the steps the other day,
and your long legs sit down some way I never could sit
to unwrap the Ace bandage. What color is the pain?
Yellow. See YELLOW. All up and down it. See YELLOW.
And I look at that leg, that once went dancing,
swollen, pitting, the skin thin and hairless,
see the sludged arteries, the muscles shrunken,
that soon will not be walking, nor its owner.
But power flows out of your long lithe hands
into that leg seeing yellow, just now spiting
the mocking robe of Tyrian purple and logwood:
she sees her pain yellow, in your hands, she walks on it.
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Author:
Robert Southwick Richmond (
Offline) - Published: January 19th, 2021 20:29
- Comment from author about the poem: About 1989. I watched a therapist walking a patient through her pain. She told the woman to visualize her pain as yellow. I contrasted that visualization with how I as a pathologist might visualize that sore leg in microscopic sections, stained with a purple natural dye made from logwood. The mocking robe refers to the purple robe the Roman soldiers put on Jesus in the gospel accounts of the crucifixion.
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 33
Offline)
Comments1
Delightful and clever verse, Robert. I enjoyed reading this one and did so smiling!
Thanks! Still in contact with the therapist, now an expert on mushrooms of the southeastern US.
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