Grit

Credit: Rod Waddington 

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

~ Angela Duckworth

Grit

Credit: Rod Waddington 

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

~ Angela Duckworth

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Source: Shutterstock

When the monster grabbed him up, tossed him back
into its mouth, we had been swimming along holding hands
and I didn't let go, flew up dripping and dropped beside him
into the dark and foreign place where there were others
dimly swimming for their lives and there were teeth that grazed
our skins now and then as we lay very still, our hope ballooning,
rising up into the sinuses of the creature intermingled
with our fear so that both rose equally and were, we prayed,
equally compelling, but the truth, we knew, was that the beast
was dumb and barely knew we were there.
Every day
it tested its spikes against our naked fragile bodies,
some days teasing us by tipping forward, almost letting
us roll out into the frothy sea, but most days we lay still,
read medical books, listened to the messages of friends
sending love and encouragement from far away places
where life went on in warm kitchens and the linens
were clean and dry.
Finally, the thing decided not to decide,
let us wash out with the tide. We are swimming again
and the ocean is very blue. But there is a fin moving
beside us on the horizon and though it disappears
from time to time in the bright sun
at dusk it is always there
circling.

~ Gail Rudd Entrekin

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Source: Shutterstock

When the monster grabbed him up, tossed him back
into its mouth, we had been swimming along holding hands
and I didn't let go, flew up dripping and dropped beside him
into the dark and foreign place where there were others
dimly swimming for their lives and there were teeth that grazed
our skins now and then as we lay very still, our hope ballooning,
rising up into the sinuses of the creature intermingled
with our fear so that both rose equally and were, we prayed,
equally compelling, but the truth, we knew, was that the beast
was dumb and barely knew we were there.
Every day
it tested its spikes against our naked fragile bodies,
some days teasing us by tipping forward, almost letting
us roll out into the frothy sea, but most days we lay still,
read medical books, listened to the messages of friends
sending love and encouragement from far away places
where life went on in warm kitchens and the linens
were clean and dry.
Finally, the thing decided not to decide,
let us wash out with the tide. We are swimming again
and the ocean is very blue. But there is a fin moving
beside us on the horizon and though it disappears
from time to time in the bright sun
at dusk it is always there
circling.

~ Gail Rudd Entrekin

At The Gate Of A Hospital

Paul McCarthy, Mannequin Head, 1995, Courtesy The Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens.

Lo! Who is being down loaded,
From the ambulance,
Covered with the bed sheet,
All spotted with blood,
And now tossing for life?
Her swollen belly portends,
That it contains a pre-born babe.
Oh! They tell she has been shot,
By her husband: the crown of head,
For not affording,
The substance for drink;
She was spared no more,
Though six children she bore.

Lo! Who has been brought,
Lying on the cot,
All scratched, nailed,
Bitten and torn,
As if the dogs,
Have exercised well their skill,
In the same way,
When they prey upon the deer?
Oh! They say she was raped,
By the men twelve,
They let loose appetite,
Of their bestial nature,
They always remained unpunished,
In the plagued system.
Now the cameramen zoom around,
For the public display,
To rag her remaining honour,
And a few men of law,
With the heavy round bellies,
Move helplessly.

Lo! Who has been brought,
Wrapped in a blanket,
With singed, burnt face,
Too horrible to see,
Shreds from her arms,
Are lurking loose,
Making the bones naked,
Yet she breathes,
Huffing like a furnace,
Her eyes exhibit,
Display a state of horror?
Oh! They tell she was burnt,
For restraining, preventing,
The husband: the guardian,
From fourth love marriage.

~ Shahida Latif

At The Gate Of A Hospital

Paul McCarthy, Mannequin Head, 1995, Courtesy The Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens.

Lo! Who is being down loaded,
From the ambulance,
Covered with the bed sheet,
All spotted with blood,
And now tossing for life?
Her swollen belly portends,
That it contains a pre-born babe.
Oh! They tell she has been shot,
By her husband: the crown of head,
For not affording,
The substance for drink;
She was spared no more,
Though six children she bore.

Lo! Who has been brought,
Lying on the cot,
All scratched, nailed,
Bitten and torn,
As if the dogs,
Have exercised well their skill,
In the same way,
When they prey upon the deer?
Oh! They say she was raped,
By the men twelve,
They let loose appetite,
Of their bestial nature,
They always remained unpunished,
In the plagued system.
Now the cameramen zoom around,
For the public display,
To rag her remaining honour,
And a few men of law,
With the heavy round bellies,
Move helplessly.

Lo! Who has been brought,
Wrapped in a blanket,
With singed, burnt face,
Too horrible to see,
Shreds from her arms,
Are lurking loose,
Making the bones naked,
Yet she breathes,
Huffing like a furnace,
Her eyes exhibit,
Display a state of horror?
Oh! They tell she was burnt,
For restraining, preventing,
The husband: the guardian,
From fourth love marriage.

~ Shahida Latif

The Innocence of Radium

Photo: Nicole (feurety)

With a head full of Swiss clockmakers
she took a job at a New Jersey factory
painting luminous numbers, copying the style
believed to be found in the candlelit backrooms
of snowbound alpine villages.

Holding each clockface to the light,
she would catch a glimpse of the chemist
as he measured and checked. He was old enough,
had a kind face and a foreign name
she never dared to pronounce: Sochocky.

For a joke she painted her teeth and nails,
jumped out on the other girls walking home.
In bed that night she laughed out loud
and stroked herself with ten green fingertips.
Unable to sleep, the chemist traced each number

on the face he had stolen from the factory floor.
He liked the curve of her eights;
the way she raised the wet brush to her lips
and, with a delicate purse of her mouth,
smoothed the bristle to a perfect tip.

Over the years he watched her grow dull.
The doctors gave up, removed half her jaw,
and blamed syphilis when her thighbone snapped
as she struggled up a flight of steps.
Diagnosing infidelity, the chemist pronounced

the innocence of radium, a kind of radiance
that could not be held by the body of a woman,
only caught between her teeth. He was proud
of his paint and made public speeches
on how it could be used by artists to convey

the quality of moonlight. Sochocky displayed
these shining landscapes on his walls;
his faith sustained alone in a room
full of warm skies that broke up the dark
and drained his blood of its colour.

His dangerous bones could not keep their secret.
Laid out for X-ray, before any button was pressed,
they exposed the plate and pictured themselves
as a ghost, not a skeleton, a photograph
he was unable to stop being developed and fixed.

~ Lavinia Greenlaw

The Innocence of Radium

Photo: Nicole (feurety)

With a head full of Swiss clockmakers
she took a job at a New Jersey factory
painting luminous numbers, copying the style
believed to be found in the candlelit backrooms
of snowbound alpine villages.

Holding each clockface to the light,
she would catch a glimpse of the chemist
as he measured and checked. He was old enough,
had a kind face and a foreign name
she never dared to pronounce: Sochocky.

For a joke she painted her teeth and nails,
jumped out on the other girls walking home.
In bed that night she laughed out loud
and stroked herself with ten green fingertips.
Unable to sleep, the chemist traced each number

on the face he had stolen from the factory floor.
He liked the curve of her eights;
the way she raised the wet brush to her lips
and, with a delicate purse of her mouth,
smoothed the bristle to a perfect tip.

Over the years he watched her grow dull.
The doctors gave up, removed half her jaw,
and blamed syphilis when her thighbone snapped
as she struggled up a flight of steps.
Diagnosing infidelity, the chemist pronounced

the innocence of radium, a kind of radiance
that could not be held by the body of a woman,
only caught between her teeth. He was proud
of his paint and made public speeches
on how it could be used by artists to convey

the quality of moonlight. Sochocky displayed
these shining landscapes on his walls;
his faith sustained alone in a room
full of warm skies that broke up the dark
and drained his blood of its colour.

His dangerous bones could not keep their secret.
Laid out for X-ray, before any button was pressed,
they exposed the plate and pictured themselves
as a ghost, not a skeleton, a photograph
he was unable to stop being developed and fixed.

~ Lavinia Greenlaw