<center>https://i.imgur.com/Xp1M5Qo.jpg</center>
<center>[Source](https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soubor:Margaret_Atwood_Eden_Mills_Writers_Festival_2006.jpg)</center>

# <center> Margaret Atwood: Writing about the disease </center>

#
<center>https://i.imgur.com/MxjKjnV.png?1</center>
#

<div class="text-justify"> Hello, dear readers. On many occasions I have thought that people don't look for the books they want to read, it's the books that look for their readers, to talk to them, as friends, as confidants, because sometimes I have found books that I wasn't looking for and after reading them they have marked me. The same happens to me with some stories or poems. I have taken the habit of opening the books at random and reading the selected page to see what it tells me. Normally I have found answers to some questions or reflected some moments.

#

These days I was reading a book by **Margaret Atwood**, **_New Moon_**. As you all know, Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer who has become a literary phenomenon with her novel **_The Handmaid's Tale_**, of which there is a successful series. So it's no wonder that author, work and TV show have won all the awards in the world. This time I wasn't reading one of her narrative texts, but a book of poetry, a facet in which she may not be as well known, but which is also very good.  In Atwood's poems we find a lot of narration, perhaps because it is the genre that has more rooted in the veins, but we also find images pregnant with meanings that invite the reader to interiorization, questioning and sleeplessness.

#

As I do with other books of poetry, I took two poems, at random, and read them; to my surprise, the two poems revolved around the same theme: the illness and death of the father. In these two poems, the lyrical voice speaks of the final moments of the illness and of how the being that remains stranded in this shore that is called life, looks at the one that goes without being able to do anything only to give him the last farewell. 

#
<center>https://i.imgur.com/STEBX2w.jpg?1</center>
<center>[Source](https://pxhere.com/es/photo/617521)</center>

#

The first poem we will read is called **_"Next to the bed"_**. As the poem is very long, I will only take the fragments that interest me:

>You sit next to the bed
In intensive care, you take your father's feet.
like you haven't done since you were a little girl.
You'd rather take her hands, but they're tied,
at last empty of power

#

In this first stanza, the lyrical voice puts us in scene. It tells us where he is and who the sick person is, but it also informs us of his reaction to the moment. We see that he talks about touching the father's feet when he wants to touch their hands. Embracing one extremity or another can have its differences and we see this after she mentions not only that she embraced her feet as a child but that now her hands are "empty of power": the helplessness of the bedridden. Hugging our feet we see it as an attitude of infancy, of adoration perhaps, even of looking small in front of the big man; on the other hand, taking hands refers us to friendship and especially to accompaniment, which is perhaps the trait that the lyrical voice wants to mark in this moment of sorrow. In another of the stanzas he says:

>You take their feet, they don't move. Would you like
drag him back. Remember
how you have judged each other
in silence, relentlessly.

#
<div class="pull-right">
 
https://i.imgur.com/xKErR9z.jpg?1
[Source](https://pixabay.com/es/rosario-la-oraci%C3%B3n-orar-rojo-manos-699619/)

</div> 
It is not surprising that it is precisely in the last moments of a person in which we remember, as a film, the life we have had by his side. In this stanza, the poetic voice allows us to glimpse that it has been a difficult relationship, of judgments on both sides. However, his desire is to give him back his life. Later he continues:

>You listen attentively, as if you were looking for a sign,
the underwater sound of the monitors,
the flooded lungs breathe thanks to the machines,
the heart, connected to the sound
goes too fast in the still body.


#
This is one of the stanzas that most impacted me, not so much by the crudity of its images, the sound of the machines and the description of the disease, but also the idea of artificial, fictitious mobility: life sustained by a machine. This poem culminates with the serenity required by the moment:


>Now walk
somewhere where you can't follow him,
without leaving traces.
Already in this whiteness
leaves no shadows.


#
<center>https://i.imgur.com/3MbuD2c.jpg?1</center>
<center>[Source](https://pixabay.com/es/playa-arena-oc%C3%A9ano-huellas-persona-1758097/)</center>


And after long and descriptive verses, this poem closes with brief verses that speak to us of the fleeting nature of life, of walking along this path called life, but also of the traces that each one leaves on his own path.

#

In this other poem, we will no longer see the one who is bedridden, but the one around, the one who suffers farewell. Its title is **_"Intergalactic farewell"_**:

>Now that the pain is slower, I know.
which is there, less
like you've been skinned. 
scalded. A long moment without breathing
and no feelings. Then, layer after layer, it takes off.
A peach in boiling water.

#

Let's stop at the peach image. With this we imagine the physical pain that the person may be feeling. When the detachment of layers is described to us, we know that it is the torn skin, product of suffering. The lyrical voice continues:

>The more I follow, the less it is 
anyone's guilt, especially not 
It's your fault, that you have your own needs
decades ago, and the doctor
doesn't stop to ask why
blood and lymph are spilled
on the floor, but he turns around.
and asks for a suture. That's what I'm doing,
 even though all the patches 
to keep things together and harmonious
 have shattered my eyes.
#
<center>https://i.imgur.com/WrYjWW2.jpg?1</center>
<center>[Source](https://pxhere.com/es/photo/711951)</center>

#

If we detail the last verses of this stanza, we speak of the doctor who turns his back on the patient regardless of the symptoms of the disease, as if the image of death were a daily and irrelevant image, while the person next to him begins to cry without being able to hide his suffering. 

#

This poem has the same style as the previous one, in the last verses we find a lyrical voice that says goodbye and addresses the sick.

>Goodbye, earthling,
You were the most perfect 
than the others, but not enough.
#

With this farewell not only seals a door that will never open again, but celebrates the person who leaves and this we perceive when referring to how perfect he was, but not so much as not to have dodged death.

#
<center>https://i.imgur.com/e24bNqy.jpg?1</center>
<center>[Source](https://pxhere.com/es/photo/654875)</center>

In these days of the new year, when we are still accommodating the physical and spiritual burdens, we will surely remember those who do not begin this year with us, who have already departed. That memory is a tribute, the sincere celebration of having coincided with the other although it has been a brief moment in this life. Perhaps at the end of longing and resignation, we can let them go and say with all our heart: **"Farewell, earthling, for me you were perfect"**.

#
---

#

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and enjoying the poems by **Magaret Atwood**. Remember to vote for @adsactly as a witness and join our server in discord. Until the next smile. ;)</div>

#
<center>https://i.imgur.com/MxjKjnV.png?1</center>
#

### Bibliographic Reference

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood
Margaret Atwood (2000). New moon. Barcelona: Icaria


Written by:@nancybriti



<center>
## Click on the coin to join our Discord Chat ##
</center>
<center><a href="https://discord.gg/pBnxNgV">
<img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmbjaMgp9TG7ZCasYVn2ATTzRPoWCeSkFjwhSUMvdkMJLA/FINAL-LOGO%20smallest.png" alt="Go Adsactly" width="200" height="200" border="0">
</a>
------
<center> **Vote @adsactly-witness for Steem witness!**
Witness proposal is here: 
<center><p>
<a href="https://steemit.com/witness-category/@adsactly-witness/adsactly-steemit-witness-proposal">Witness Proposal</a>
<a href="https://steemit.com/witness-category/@adsactly-witness/adsactly-witness-report-2018-02-07">Witness Proposal Update</a>
</p> </center>

<center>
<a href="https://steemit.com/~witnesses">Go To Steem Witness Page</a>
In the bottom of the page type: adsactly-witness and press vote.
![witness vote.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbcCBNZZMzBANk1mJz94DHCawdaoBUBigR3Tk8FNr473L/witness%20vote.gif)
Use small letters and no "@" sign. Or, click [here](https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=adsactly-witness&approve=1) to vote directly!
Thank you!
 </center>
------