A Poetic Snapshot of ALS

This comes from a guest contributor, my younger brother Kurt.

To Kris,

 

To dedicate an ice bucket challenge

Is to attribute so much more than 

A quiver in the spine.

It is so much more than a feeling,

A transitory sensation.

To dedicate anything to you

Is deeper than that.

It is more like being a root 

Among many beneath the earth

And you are the tree, an organism

With the purest cause.

 

Now like a tree

You really are an organism

With bone, nerves and blood

Like the wood, limbs and trunk,

You are all those folded proteins

And chemical signals too.

You are the cells that wither within you

And you are the synapses that strengthen your thoughts.

You are this cascading system of physicality,

But you are also grace and courage unfiltered,

Which to me makes you an angel

If they exist – And why ask?

You are here.

 

But with sickness like this, I struggle and cringe.

It would make me sulk and draw within

Were you not there to hold those doors open.

So instead I ask: what is with the genes,

Which from the earth produce growth

But so to enact the degeneration

Down the generational line.

Did I luck out or am I only keeping

My doom at bay?

But as I pretend to sit idle

In a canoe as the orange water waves

Sway me,

My soul,

Set free.

I am comfortable

To know and know not,

Because you are and will always be

Here.