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</script>June 13, 1993. A dismal month followed by a dismal year. My brother was diagnosed with Leukemia, a blood cancer. He had just turned 20 that month. But hopes were high that a rigorous chemo treatment would put him into remission, and it did. June 1994. The cancer came back. Repeated chemo wasn't working. Bone Marrow matches were non existent. That was his only hope of survival.
October 16, 1994. The heart wrenching day came and Robert died.
Luckily we have something to remember him by. He thought ahead and left us his poetry. Poetry he wrote during his year of treatment. I hope you'll enjoy them because I know he would have liked to have known that his poems were published in some form. We spoke about it before he died. I put them into book form for him after he died but I couldn't find a publisher.
So now I publish to you, the worldwide web audience, so that he can be remembered and maybe something in his poetry will help you deal with your trials and tribulations as he dealt with his. Maybe somebody who reads this will find comfort, he always wanted to help people.
"On June 13, 1993 I was diagnosed with Leukemia. This poetry was compiled during my year of treatment when I had a great deal of time to reflect upon my life ... past, present & future.
These are tales. Tales of real life. Some of these stories may not be about me but I wrote them because they have affected me. Whether they are my stories or stories of people I know is not to be told but interpreted. That is why I call them Gray Tales." ..... Robert James
CARPE DIEM
A day in my journal, just one day of my life.
Can you count my emotions? Do you think you can get that high?
Can you see the thousand shades, that spectrum of gray I see?
Do you sense the pain of a troubled generation?
Can you see the revolution in our creativity? Can you feel the loneliness?
Well, I'll always be a loner ... Imagine the beauty I find in simplicity.
Are you conscious of the lyrics? These words I've felt and wrote.
Is the innocence of children fascinating to everybody?
I feel their happiness when I watch them play.
Children live the adventure, love the ride.
No dismay. No dismay. They just play, they can play.
Do the scars fade but never go away?
Mine run deep and wide, they may fade but they always stay.
Scars on my flesh, do you see on my body? Scars inside, can you see in my eyes?
I know you can still see mine. It's okay ... He's fine.
Can you understand since you almost died? I understand so much clearer now.
Do you hear the howling of the wolves? I've walked amongst them as I still do.
Well, I tell you to learn how to play. Can you seize the day despite the memory?
I master the day despite the night's agony. I can try to forget but I choose to remember.
My memory is all me, I can't forget myself again.
I am the traveler. Imagine a century long life, even begin to try ...
Understand what's made me in two decades of mine?
Read the writing on the walls. Listen to the children.
Sing when the birds sing as you play in the rainfall.
Be true to the pain but smell the beauty. Kill the beasts then walk a day in your shoes.
Seize that day ... I do ... in Poetry.
