Large Fierce Mammal

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain”
~ William Faulkner

This poem was inspired by personally experienced actual events that played out way back in the mid 1980’s. I have never been so happy to be in the grip of the worst physical pain I have ever experienced, and the words of William Faulkner were the first that came to mind the instant it roared through me.

Faulkner Was Right

By LFM

Once a dagger pierced my flesh.
It entered from the side.
It pricked my rightmost kidney,
And from this I nearly died.

So little blood there was without,
So much released within.
One liter and a half it was,
That hid beneath my skin.

Rolled before the Surgeon
I remember thinking then
That this could be the end of me.
The stilling of my pen.

The sleeping valve then opened up,
I failed at counting ten.
The Surgeon plied his skill an hour –
But seconds to my ken!

And then I lay upon my back,
In roiling, boiling haze
That quickly cleared away to leave
White ceiling in my gaze.

I knew not where or when I was
But otherwise felt grand!
I learned the truth was otherwise
With my attempt to stand.

I barely had a chance to move
Before a woman came.
She threw herself across my chest,
And cried aloud my name.

“Wait!” she cried, “It’s done! It’s done!”
A curious thing to say.
T’was then I saw her Nurse’s gown
And all sprang bright as day!

And with the knowing came the pain,
That gripped me to the core.
I’ve never known its like since then,
Nor any day before.

But even as it gripped me,
And near took my breath away,
My spirit revelled that I’d lived
To see another day!

For as I walk my Path of Life
And find it split in twain,
With choice of pain or nothing,
I will always choose the pain.