Johanna Shapiro, PhD
I live in the white world
but I walk in the red way
By the time I wanted
to take a long walk
off a short pier
I couldn’t walk at all
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
I live in the white world
but I walk in the red way
By the time I wanted
to take a long walk
off a short pier
I couldn’t walk at all
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Have you ever noticed how
unprepared we are
for the problems life throws at us?
We are very unprepared
We are so unprepared
so beyond our comfort zone
it doesn’t make sense
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
In kindergarten, our daughter
Was a rabbit in reading
Is that good? We wondered
Oh yes, enthused her teacher
The rabbits are adorable
Only later did we learn it meant
She could not read
Could not read?
How was that possible?
How was that possible in our family
Where everyone could read by three or four
And the bright ones could read
The encyclopedia by two – for fun
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
After my husband’s ocular stroke,
We wondered about risk of a “real one.”
“Significantly increased,”
said the busy physician.
“What can we do?”
“Take a baby aspirin –
And live life to the fullest”
We took this prescription to the pharmacist
Who gave us the aspirin
But said we were on our own for the rest
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
2011
This is what is
Not what I want, but what is
What is –
The words are like two little rocks
Unobtrusive yet so heavy
They sink in my stomach
Like cancer
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
2011
Does writing about it help?
Who knows
But not writing doesn’t help
I know that
What changes when I write?
Nothing
Everything
Am I a better person
When I write?
Not always, but sometimes
In that moment when I write
I discover
A world in which I am not afraid
A world that still belongs to me
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Every morning when I wake up
there is that moment
when I do not remember that
I have cancer
Every morning for one precious eye-blink
my life is ordinary
Every morning brings a small space,
the slightest hiccup of a pause
in which I believe completely and unquestioningly
in my wholeness
Every morning for the space of a breath
I am reunited with those who live
in the kingdom of the well
Every morning I linger for that moment,
only a moment, in the joy of oblivion
Every morning I touch the shore of before
before I enter the world of after
Every morning, for that one infinite instant,
I am not damaged, not broken
I am that vanished self
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Poor Damocles
How did he manage that long night
with everyone guzzling and gorging
unconcernedly around him?
They carousing with abandon
He sitting so still
the razor-sharp sword
hanging by a hair
above his head
Did he try to just ignore it
eyes resolutely focused straight ahead
making witty conversation with the guest
on his right
deciding he might as well
eat drink make merry
make the most of
the moment,
his moment
Johanna Shapiro, PhD
As a scientist
when I first became ill
I obsessively asked my doctors
for the numbers:
What is the survival rate
at 2 years? 5 years?
How many
are alive
10 years out?