[Martin Elster]

Good news! I’m glad to hear it.

[Jennifer Reeser]

He could not sleep last night, wrote a poem at one a.m. -- better than most of us could write at the very top of our game -- then sent it to me two hours ago.

Ever the veteran.

[Catherine Chandler]

I've asked Tim if I can post his post-op poem on the Sphere. Will edit back once he replies.

Edited in: Got the OK from Tim to post.

I Tracked the Marshes

I've never feared I might not live till Spring
which seems so far away in February,
winter this year so long that it is scary.
Lord, how I long to see the geese take wing
from corn stubble where snow drifts disappear,
to witness the first greening of the grass.
This year for me it might not come to pass.
Thankful I have a Higher Power to steer
my future I live one day at a time,
write this diary, read my daily psalm
in Sullivan translation. How they calm
a man who has so long aspired to climb
over this prairie where I sank my roots
and tracked the marshes with my muddy boots.




(Tim Murphy, February 9, 2018)

[Susan McLean]

Excellent sonnet. Thanks for posting it, Cathy, and I am glad to hear that Tim made it safely through the surgery.

Susan

[Allen Tice]

It's a very good poem, Tim. Maybe the best of yours I've seen. (Too much else to say out loud.)

[Gregory Dowling]

Good to hear the surgery went well. And great to read this fine sonnet. Auguri, Tim!

[Maryann Corbett]

And Tim, your Wintry Gratitude poems up at Commonweal are quite wonderful, too.

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/p...-gratitude-ode

[Chris Childers]

I was brought here by Maryann posting the Commonweal poems on Facebook. Shocked and saddened to learn of the grim situation, but like everyone, heartened by your buoyancy and deeply moved by the recent poems. Was it 2002 or 2003 when I started posting here?--terrified of you all, especially Alan, wanting nothing more than the encouragement of your good opinion, which was enthusiastically (often too enthusiastically) bestowed. You were & are the Sphere for me. The hands of the bards and makers, clasped within and outside of time, are always pulling each other up; all we can try to do is take the next hand, and tug. Love, admiration, gratitude.

Chris

[David Anthony]

Indeed, Chris; I couldn't agree more.
I so remember the Editor from Hell, as Tim called him, and my delight whenever one of my offerings found his favour.
Tim's always been a kind critic, but a perceptive one.

[Tim Murphy]

Thanks for posting the Wintry Gratitude link, Maryann, and thanks all of you again for your best wishes. I'm on a walker, but the recuperation from the surgery is way ahead of schedule. On Monday I begin a month of radiation, and I follow that with two months of clinical trial at Mayo, combined immuno- and chemotherapy. The odds against me are pretty terrible, but I have terrific doctors and they're throwing everything they have into this fight.

If I can hunt this fall, I shall have a very strong right leg!