The Vigil of the Healing Road

I hear the low breathing of the night, and I hear your breathing, slower still, Here in the quiet room where the world recedes, leaving only the bed, the lamp, and my vigilant hands. O my love, my wounded comrade, how heavily you rest upon the cloth, You who were swift and radiant, you who walked the open road with me, stride for stride.

Now it is I who must watch, I who must answer the silent, pleading call of the flesh. My limbs are heavy as lead, the ache of exhaustion presses behind my eyes like a rising tide, The hours stretch into infinity, a long, gray procession of midnight and dawn, And the temptation whispers to close my eyes, to let the weary spirit drift away.

But I cannot stop—I will not turn from this sacred duty. I pour the water, I smooth the tangled sheets, I apply the knowing hands to muscles that ache, Not with a grudge, but with the vast, overflowing currents of my soul, Because I care with a fierceness that defies the breaking of my own body, Because you are woven into my own tissue, my own breath, my own democratic heart.

“To touch you is to touch the universe; to tend you is to tend the divine.”

I know this twilight is not forever. I look past the injuries, past the pale stillness of your current hour, And I see the robustness returning, the blood surging back into its proper channels. The day is coming—sure as the sunrise over the Atlantic—when you will rise, When you will stand on your own strong feet, shaking off the dust of this convalescing bed, Resuming your own grand march, taking care of yourself, magnificent and free once more.

Until that hour, my love, my strength is your strength. I am here, unmoving and wakeful, Holding the line against the dark.

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I am greatly enjoying trying to channel Whitman as of late.

MJP 27 MAY 2026