THE LEG

THE LEG

by Karl Shapiro

Among the iodoform, in twilight-sleep;

What have I lost? he first inquires,

Peers in the middle distance where a pain

Ghost of a nurse, hastily moves, and day,

Her blinding presence in his eyes

And how his ears. They are handling him

With rubber hands. He wants to get up.

One day beside some flowers nears his nose

He will be thinking, When will I look at it?

And pain, still in the middle distance, will reply,

At what? And he will know it's gone

O where! And begin to tremble and cry.

He will begin to cry as a child cries

Whose puppy is mangled under a screaming wheel.

Later as if deliberately, his fingers

Begin to explore the stump. He learns a shape

That is comfortable and tucked in like a sock,

This has a sense of humor, this can despise

The finest surgical limb, the dignity of limping,

The non-sense of wheel chairs. Now he smiles to the wall:

The amputation becomes an acquisition.

For the leg is wondering where he is (all is not lost)

And surely he has a duty to the leg;

He is its injury, the leg is his orphan,

He must cultivate the mind of the leg.

Pray for the part that is missing, pray for peace

In the image of man, pray, pray for its safty,

And after a little, it will die quietly.

The body, what is Father, but a sign

To love the force that grows us, to give back

What in Thy palm is senselessness and mud?

Knead, knead the substance of our understanding

Which must be beautiful in flesh to walk,

That if Thou take me angrily in hand

And hurl me to the shark, I shall not die!

This is the poem I reported in our Literature class. It's not that famous and it's really hard to obtain informations and background of these. So I posted this so I may help someone unconsciously. LOL.

Ref: Literature of the World by Lacia