POEM #1

INTRODUCTION
When I felt alone and conflicted while taking care of my mom before cancer took her life, she insisted I take up painting. That was almost 40 years ago. After my own diagnosis of crippling Rheumatoid Arthritis almost 7 years  years ago, I turned to writing essays after regaining some use of my hands and fingers. The disease predictably betrays. My pained wrists and hands haven't done much serious writing since my flare ups in late 2019 and early 2020. 

I changed that today on February 16, 2020 by writing my first poem in ages. It is sobering to accept that even when I am loved by many, one is still alone in this challenging disease. Remembering that courage may not always sustain one makes me dizzy at times.

After decades of dry spell, my muse moistened my appetite for poetry. This curiously meddlesome muse drove me to write my own verses at the very moment when feeling such deep sadness from an unexplainable fright which gripped my insides in mid-February.

Instead…