Poem: To Cure Is To Care For (The Calamity Of So Long Life)

To Cure Is To Care For
(The Calamity Of So Long Life)

Better to be cured and die
Than to be healed and live.

To cure is to care for,
Said the museum head.
That's what the pills are there for
Retorted the mummy undead.

If medicine is magical
Then what does the doctor do?
His care is clearly clerical,
His licenses not a few.

To live so long immured
Don't strike as dignified.
To care for is to cure.
If only I had died!

If only you were by my side.

To cure is to care for,
The caring is what cures.
A remedy with no wherefore
Destroys its life for sure.

If medicine is magical
Then what am I living for?
An eternal life that's chemical
Impiously is wished for.

There's the respect that makes
Calamity of so long life:
The crippled fear of aches and breaks,
Of fortune and the two-edged knife.

If medicine is magical
Then surely there's a pill for that.
The science of life is practical
And surely there's a pill for that.

To cure is to care for
Said the parish priest.
The only way to get there
Is the belly of the beast.

If salves and balms are magical
What does the philosopher do?
He rubs his chin methodical
And thinks it hardly through.

If medicine is magical
Then magical is art.
Think of the boy in the bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart.

To be cured until I die
Is what I ask for my life.

The only way to get
Through the belly of the beast
Is to die for once the death
That gets you to the feast.

To cure is to care for,
He said as he slipped the blade,
Dividing joint from marrow
Before the body decayed.