The Light at the End

    by Larina Warnock

Gratitude settles beneath dirty clothes

accumulated over these past days of attention

paid only to the narrow tunnel stretching

ahead and behind. Words like end

are ambiguous at best, but I see a faint

trace of radiance scintillating from under silver

ware and pans piled in the kitchen sink.

Doctors say it’s just a matter of a time

until this event is over, that our youngest

son is on the mend and our family will be

back to normal again in a matter of months.

At least we’re given these reprieves

between one complication and the next,

a temporal allotment to wash his wheelchair

and catch up on other household chores.

I hope that isn’t the light we’ve been waiting for.

It seems too small a thing to illuminate the tunnel.

© 2009 Larina Warnock

Larina Warnock writes poetry and prose from Corvallis, Oregon where she lives with her husband and four children.  Her work, which often details the healing journey of her family, has appeared as a top ten winner in Writer's Digest's poetry competition, Wheelhouse Magazine, The Oregonian, Space & Time Magazine, Touch: The Journal of Healing, and many others. She serves as the site administrator for the Poets.org discussion forum, editor of The Externalist, chair of Writers on the River, and as a volunteer for CALYX.