The episode: “Sweet Revenge.” The setting: Starsky’s
hospital room. The time: Those first anxious, yet hopeful,
days after Starsk has awakened from his coma. The mood: Tentative
optimism balanced by expectant fear and remembered sorrow.
Forever in a Breath
By e-pony
How I account for time has changed.
Seconds, minutes, hours
Have lost their powers
To amaze.
And weeks and days
Have lost all
meaning.
Now I measure life, breath by breath.
Each exhalation in between, I count a
little death.
And every inhalation,
Has become a
resurrection.
I watch, with eyes afraid to close,
Your anxious,
dream-filled sleep.
Wakeful terrors keep
My mind from rest,
And nightmares test
My last reserves.
Yet, still I mark the moments, beat
by beat –
The precious pulse of life,
with hope in each repeat.
And my silent, sad reflection,
Regards this
fragile benediction.
An eternity times the span
Between each quiet breath,
Suspended life and death –
Suspended pain.
The soft refrain
Of sighing sleep
Continues with its sweet reprise: in and out;
Inspires here a slender faith – expires doubt.
And still each steady susurration
Imparts its living
affirmation.
END