I Don’t Have All the Answers

I’ve just shelved
Existential questions
Beside absent friends. 
Remission doesn’t mean healing
Unless it sustains over time.
Blood tests are everchanging
Examinations of the past. 

How I feel right now
Is more important,
There is no greater
Measurement of what’s inside,
At least this is what I am learning
As I smile at the clear sky,
Breathe spruce and feel
Summer on my skin,
Even as I drive toward tests
In Port Angeles
Listening to Stephen King’s
On Writing.

I cannot predict God’s will,
But I can receive my blessings
And notice the natural art
Displayed as I choose
My focus every day.

Today a lab tech
Makes conversation,
What exciting things
Are you getting into later?
I pause before I answer,
Novel words rise from ashes,
I don’t know, but I’m going
To figure something out.

Before I say this,
In a moment barely realized,
The moths of uncertainty
Deep within me flutter free,
Gather anger and sadness
On their scaly legs,
Fly into light
And dissolve in a flash.

©️ 2024 Laura E. Garrard

Laura E. Garrard is a multiple myeloma thriver and published author living in the Northwest. Her poetry and prose have appeared in journals like The Madrona Project, Amethyst, Silver Birch, TulipTree Review, and others.