Madlynn Haber
Madlynn Haber is the author of Seasons of Sorrow and Joy (Metaphysical Fox Press, 2025). She lives in a cohousing community in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Her writing has been published in many literary journals and anthologies including, Eunoia Review, Months to Years, Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Sheila-Na-Gig and The Metaworker Literary Magazine. Online at www.madlynnwrites.com.
Easy read of the poems in the images above:
The Body’s Message
The body sends messages.
Balance is hard to achieve.
It lets me know it, regularly,
through feet lacking reliability.
Damaged by something
(no one knows what),
my feet are tentative upon the ground.
They can’t be trusted to land solidly,
leaving me wobbly and uncertain.
Once so sure of myself and my footing,
I now vacillate and question.
In this state of groundlessness,
confusion comes alive.
My skin reminds me often
of the need for softness and soothing.
Anything can be an irritant these days.
Anything can be too rough when sensitivity
is heightened and only certain fabrics
can be trusted so close to the skin.
Otherwise, there will be itchiness, irritation
and an inflaming to redness and rash.
To not be rash, one needs to choose carefully
what and who comes close.
There is a heaviness in the weight of the world
and the overweight of my own body.
There are too many burdens to carry,
too much to digest on a daily basis.
Dragging around life’s load of experience
can weigh heavily on body, mind, heart.
Already weakened eye sight and insight strain
to discern what is good from what is harmful.
The body’s messages guide us.
They ask for reassurance, nurturance, protection.
The body offers itself as spokesperson
for the pains and stresses of life.
Remembering Fatigue
Today, I shower and dress without a second thought.
I remind myself of what it was like
when getting dressed in the morning was an ordeal.
When I needed to rest before proceeding
from shower to clothes. Lying on my bed, naked,
I called it air drying, when using a towel
was simply too exhausting. Some days,
I found ways to pull my pants up and shirts
down while lying prone. And still,
I needed to catch my breath. Not chasing after it
but slowing down enough for air to circulate
on its own through my aching airways
and what was left of my damaged lungs.
Now, I shower and dress without notice.
Except today, when I do notice and marvel
at the healing capacities that have come with us from birth,
that are built into our bodies, available to our spirits.
Capacities that bring us, almost without awareness,
back to health.
How Did I Get Here?
How did I ever get here?
I ask myself in amazement
shocked by my own ingenuity,
bravery, stupidity, impulsivity.
So many forces of personality and fate
have taken me to one place or another
often to my own surprise.
How did I get here?
I ask myself while lying in the arms
of a huge radiation machine.
The table I lay upon positions itself.
My body is cushioned on all sides
as laser beams, appearing green, align
with tattoos embedded in my skin.
The glass faces of the powerful machine swirl
around me, generating waves of energy.
We believe it will be healing, melting away.
bad parts while leaving healthy ones to survive.
How did I come to be on this table,
in this whirlwind of a hospital,
in this city so far from my home?
How did I get chosen at random
to be one of the three to have this illness
that has carried me far and away.
It demands that my body, mind, and heart
adapt to circumstances, situations, ordeals
and procedures I never expected, planned for,
or even considered knowing about.
Some answers come to me in the coolness
of the third lower-level room, covered
by a heated blanket, attending to my breathing
in the stillness of the radiation chamber.
They are answers that lack language, arriving
like a storybook with pictures, images, rhymes,
revealing my soul’s haphazard roaming
from one arbitrary landing place to another.