Center Fire Poetry
Scott DuRoff's Poetic Musings on Life, Love and Death
  • Poetry Talk
  • The Unrung Bell
  • One Bit of Difference
  • Some Time to Kill
  • Old Stones
  • Home
  • Slipping Away
  • Mockingbird
  • Seeds
  • Barstools
  • Easy Grace
  • Mineral Man
  • The Skinny Branches
  • Why Not?
  • The Priestess
  • Autumn
  • For Now and Forever
  • Reliable Foundations
  • The Right To Folly
  • A New Recruit
  • Yes!
  • All The Angles
  • Happy Fourth Of July
  • The Gravity of Being
  • My Love
  • Make The Trade
  • The Horns of the Minotaur
  • Walking Away
  • Anywhere But Here
  • Meat Dance
Picture
The Right To Folly
For Brother John Sansone

The doctors said four months,
Maybe six.
But he wouldn’t believe them.
Forget the tests he said.
They wouldn’t matter anyway.

He was healing,
God would intervene he said
As he writhed in pain while
Refusing the medications
That might have given

Some relief. Until finally
His resistance was shattered
By agony too great to fight,
And still his belief in angels
And saints filled his sails.

We questioned him,
Held him accountable
For our judgments
Until he finally threatened
To walk away.

All his life he had longed for
Acknowledgement and acceptance
From his father,
From his family,
From his friends,

From us, his Spirit Brothers.
In the end he demanded
His Right To Folly
And we gave it to him.
Grudgingly perhaps

But respectfully nevertheless.
The Deep Stillness told me
That the cause of depression
Is the death of hope,
The loss of tomorrow.

Our dying brother
Never gave up,
Never abandoned tomorrow
Even though his folly
Was plain enough for all of us

To see. Even at the end
When he knew there were
Only hours left,
He still hung on
To that elusive miracle.

Now I look around and wonder
Who amongst us finds
Themselves in need
Of  the redemption found
In that Sacred Right To Folly.


Scott DuRoff 7/27/2013

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.