A year and a half ago, I fell seriously ill. After a 6 day stay in the ICU, I came home unable to unscramble a simple five alphabet word like “poems.” It took me 4 days to go through the final proof of my own book “Mustard Seed: A Collage of Science, Art and Love Poems ─ and sad beyond words. Much, much better now, I have learned to accept a new “normal” with humility and patience without yearning for the woman I was.
Some 25 years ago, I attended a conference in Rome and returned with a statue of the Pieta which has been on my mantelpiece above the fireplace ever since then.
The poem below (included in Mustard Seed) comes from gazing at that statue endlessly.
THE PIETA
After Michelangelo Buonarroti, Vatican City, Rome
O lady, you part your legs,
not to birth the one you grew within your womb,
but to cradle a man—
his buttocks in the hammock of your gown
your elbow an arc for his shoulders,
stilled temples on your breast.
You gaze at purpled gashes, blood reds, pinks
his body still warm,
your boy crowned king.
For this alone were you born,
For this alone he born.
O Mary,
Look up from his face.
Tell me,
For what was I born?
(for a signed copy of Mustard Seed, click on books)
Lalita Noronha 
Really pleased to know that you have made good recovery.
Betty and I wish you a full recovery and that you continue with writing fantastic poems.
I used to converse with a friend of mine in rhymes during our college days.
Would be great to meet up after so many years.
Walter, believe it or not, I haven’t been on my blog for a while until yesterday. I am just seeing your reply to this post. Thanks so much. Wrote an email to you yesterday. So glad to be in touch again.