Life Still Wants To Live
I hope you will read the poem Through Sleeping Trees before reading my comments.
I am acquainted with disease in my personal life. My father died with complications from Parkinson’s and my mother, after several years of treatments for lymphoma, ultimately became a casualty of cancer. I’ve witnessed others suffer and sometimes lose their lives to disease as well. Living and coping with a disease or chronic illness can be difficult and frustrating in numerous ways.
Through Sleeping Trees
I feel this poem can be subjectively interpreted in diverse ways. However I wrote it attempting to metaphorically describe some of the possible emotions of a journey with a life-threatening disease.
Battling Disease
My poem, Through Sleeping Trees does not speak about disease directly. Rather, I try to evoke some of the emotions that might occur with a diagnosis of a life-threatening disease or chronic illness. I chose imagery not related to disease, in the form of a rather treacherous journey, alone and lost in a forest. I used this imagery to evoke the emotions I wanted to convey.
Some of these emotions might include feelings of isolation, or being trapped and alone. Illness can cause fear and apprehension about the situation or the future. In this poem, I also tried to touch on feelings of exhaustion and wondering sometimes if it is worth continuing to endure. Finally, I tried to speak to the desire to live, to survive, no matter how difficult.
Dealing with a life threatening disease is a journey, in my thinking. In these situations, always hoping and pursuing a cure, but that is not always the outcome. However…
“Life wants to live
To survive, even now
Ignoring all suffering
Regardless of how…”
Best wishes in your journey. Thank you very much for reading.
A.H. Browning
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