Sickness is a Teacher...

A bodies sickness teaches,

standing before her class

lip-sticked and holding chalk

scrawling illegible chicken scratch

on blackboards usually paid no attention

—now we sit up straight

arched back and taken aback.

Who knew to appreciate such teachings?

These pontifications to sleepy-seeded eyes

uninterested until poked and provoked

by discomfort, a civil war of the innards 

screaming about this or that—

urgencies and emergencies

just yesterday never landing,

now land on this painful day.

Usually slouched hunchbacked

Notre Dame’s bell tower finally gongs

middle ear blown to bits

ringing long after the bell’s been rung,

sifting through sirens for sounds

coming off the tongue of the teacher,

left to read lips alone.

The lessons of infirmity

come fast and frantic now

too late one heeds these truths

now almost self-evident

veiled to the whole and healthy

their pencils unsharpened, unready

to capture the shalky scribbles

written everyday across our lives just noticed

now.

The aches speak of chemistry

the chills, biology

the nausea, phytology

the bones, osteology

the weakness, physiology 

the frailty, psychology 

the pity, masculinity.

The textbooks filled with wisdom

deemed boring by a bored pupil

awaken the ingrate

infusing gratitude in the granular

incremental gifts of each

pregnant moment.

Blessings blurred by health

now cleansed by queasiness

are heard clearly,

noise becoming sound again.

Sickness is a teacher

instructing and inspiring

with pangs and pains.

And writhing in ones bed

the beggar pines for the chance

to bless and be blessed again,

restored, redeemed.

To see what always been there all along.