Living not waiting?

The Waiting Room

Intent on newspapers, phones, the floor

We wait, a studied calmness

I see the strain in faces

The men alongside the women

Silent in the main

Waiting our purpose here

A sigh, a shuffle of paper

Down turned eyes

The door opens

A name is called

We settle back to our waiting

For our turn to leave

The December frost sets the tone

Of this winter day

Life bustles with Christmas

But in this room we wait

Our lives on pause

Our breath held till we know

Behind me the Blackadder painting

Attempts to soften the blow

The soft purple Iris bring

Colour and life to the starkness

A fellow survivor-so her work

Holds that deeper meaning

Twenty years since I first sat waiting

To know my fait

To learn that cancer would change my path

To scar my breast and my life

Is that it's legacy?

Waiting to know its next move

The king of players

Omnipotence in it's hand

Defiant I set my face against it

My life, my decisions give me

An illusion of control

That's enough for now

The ebb and flow of the waiting room

A hypnotic movement

One tense face replaced by another

Flicking through journals to stop

Thinking- mind full not

Mindful in this waiting room for life

My turn in time

I face the judgement of the

Clinicians skill and cold steel

Of the mammogram

I leave with a warm dose of optimism

No longer waiting but living

Actually it was out to a walk though the park on a wonderful winter day,a fabulous blue sky then tempted us into a walk through the Botanic gardens.