As I sit in the woods, a strong smell fills the air,
Pungent wild garlic; eyes close, I am there.
On this bench, two years prior, where a call had me picked,
Like a rose in her prime, to be told she was sick.
A tumour, they’d told me, with no time for thinking,
Just garlic’s strong stench; like my life, it was stinking.
The smell filled my lungs as I faced the harsh truth,
Then handed my life to consultants to sleuth.
The fumes took me straight to a world unbeknown,
With needles and scanners and hours on the phone,
Where time crept at a pace laced with tension and dread,
Or zoomed fast on adrenaline, till cancer they said.
I wept by the garlic, in woods where I’d flee,
To the sea of white tops round the bench by the tree.
Green leaves formed a carpet, abundant in sway,
Though their growth seemed an insult, as life went astray.
The treatment was brutal, the drugs never-ending,
I was told that my body would do all the mending,
But each dose hit hard like the throw of a stone,
Reducing me down to a sad bag of bones.
I finished the chemo, though drugs made me mental,
My loved ones pillars for my crumbling temple.
Remission was strange, left me weak and ground down,
The feigned joy was erased by complete overwhelm.
Was there garlic that year? There must have been some.
I cannot recall, so detached I was numb.
Life was a struggle, which wasn’t expected,
I thought I’d slot back, my absence undetected.
But slowly, so slowly, my legs gained some muscle,
I tried hard to bypass all life’s grind and hustle.
I rebuilt my world with the things so appealing:
Like writing and swimming and nature and healing.
The checkups persist, yet there’s now time to breathe,
Reflecting on all that from cancer I’ll leave.
From my trip to that new world, there’s much I have gained –
For what offers a greater life teacher than pain?
Today garlic’s scent doesn’t feel so confusing,
It’s audaciousness now seems absurdly amusing.
I open my eyes, the bench dappled by sun,
I sit for a while, then get up and move on.
Laura writes... 