by
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
There are those who wake
in the same body every morning.
Ankles and knees moving briskly, unaware.
Belly, painless and unnoticed.
The breath the same,
as full, as sweet,
as when they laid down last night.
I awaken every morning and wonder
What body I am in today?
What moves freely? What aches?
How clearly will the right eye see?
The left?
What will obey? What rebel?
Uncertainty is aliveness,
and aliveness,
grace.
© Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
“Crohn’s Disease” is reprinted by permission of the author from Wounded Healers: A Book of Poems by People Who Have Had Cancer and Those Who Love Them edited by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. (Wounded Healer Press, 1994).
