Oxygen Mask Poem by Michael Maxwell Steer

The old man in the mask raved breathlessly
while the nurses urged him to sit up,
offering words of encouragement containing
only the prescribed measure of human comfort.

Whatever his life had been - it was no longer.
He was outwith the harbour-wall of his native port,
adrift on the wider ocean; borne by a swell
that hurls the waves minute by minute at the jagged rocks,
atomizing the solid water into
spray. Nature eating its own, as part
of the endless cycle of decay and renewal.

Who could comfort him & assuage his fears?
Like clock-menders, the doctors had removed his cover
but were unable to replace the faulty ticker.
No tender words could soften what his body
sensed: time was up. Was it days
or months that he had left? Nobody knew
whether the mechanism could be rewound.

The infinite, flexible life force that fired his arrow
at the sun had long since past its zenith. Had he known,
when his days were long and warm, that he
would come to this - fighting for breath, alone,
a fist of fear ruthlessly choking his airway?

Death - that administrative nightmare
for which staff were trained to fill in forms,
notify porters to clear the bed,
inform the authorities … and next of kin -

had no place in anyone's vocabulary.
Death was an overwhelming army marching
towards this city, whose name could not be uttered
for fear of the defenders' sensibilities.

Was anyone watching at the old man's bedside
to measure that arrow's descent, and show the spot
where it would clatter back to earth - helping
him to be present for life's final ceremony?

Who took that blue-veined hand to sing it to sleep
with nursery rhymes or half-forgotten hymns,
or heard him babble memories of home,
of love and loss and life and rest and dust?

O, had I heart to pray for all the world
that this old man should be absolved of sin,
be led aboard the Styx-bound barque and calmly
ferried to the island of the dead.

But this … in a hospital ward? Unthinkable!
And so, because we have no scientific
knowledge, no ‘evidence-based information',
what is human has become a mere machine
connected to other machines until it conks.


19 May 2009