easter in a cancer ward

i first read this poem in college - a friend passed it my way. i'm still not sure i fully understand it all, but i know for sure that i felt a whole mess of emotions - fluctuating from one extreme to the other in a matter of a line - as i read it. the more i read it, the more i love it. i love the colors. i love the imagery. i love how i can see and hear and feel this poem. picture it as you go. and experience it. sometimes only in coming face to face with death, do we come to understand true life. come to belief.

Easter in a Cancer Ward
--Nicholas Samaras

Because it has been years since my hands
have dyed an egg or I've remembered
my father with color in his beard,
because my fingers have forgotten
the feel of wax melting on my skin,
the heat of the paraffin warping air,
because I prefer to view death politely from afar,
I agree to visit the children's cancer ward.

In her ballet-like butterfly slippers, Elaine pad-pads
down the carpeted hall. I bring the bright bags,
press down packets of powdered dye, repress my slight unease.
She sweeps her hair from her volunteer badge, leaves
behind her own residents' ward for a few hours' release.
The new wing's doors glide open onto great light. Everything is
vibrant and clattered with color. Racing
up, children converge, their green voices rising.

What does one do with the embarrassment of staring
at sickness? Suddenly, I don't know where to place
my hands. Children with radiant faces
reach out thinly, clamor for the expected bags, lead
us to the Nurses' kitchen. Elaine introduces me and reads
out a litany of names. Some of the youngest wear
old expressions. The bald little boy loves Elaine's long mane of hair
and holds the healthy thickness to his face, hearing

her laugh as she pulls him close. "I'm dying,"
he says, and Elaine tells him she is, too: too
much iron silting her veins. I can never accept that truth
yes, in five months, she'll slip away in a September
night - leaving her parents and me to bow our heads, bury her
in a white wedding gown, our people's custom.
But right now, I don't know this. Right now, we are young,
still immortal, and the kids fidget, crying

out for their eggs. Elaine divides them into teams;
I lay out the tools for the operation.
I tell them all how painting Easter eggs used to be done
in the Old Country. Before easy dyes were common,
villagers boiled onion peels, ladled eggs
into pots so the shells wouldn't break.
They'd scoop them out, flushed a brownish-
red, and the elders would polish and polish

them with olive oil, singing hymns for the Holy Thursday hours.
The children laugh and boo when I try to sing. The boys swirl
speckles of color into hot water, while the girls
time the eggs. When a white-faced boy asks from nowhere
if I believe in Christ and living forever,
I stop stirring the mix, answer, "Yes, I do." I answer slowly
and when I speak, my own voice deafens me.
The simple truth blooms like these painted flowers

riding up the bright kitchen walls. I come
to belief. I know that much. Still, what a man may
do with his beliefs demands more than what he says.
Now, the hot waters are stained a rich red. The eggs have
boiled and cooled. To each set of hand, Elaine gives
one towel, three eggs. I pass the pot of melted paraffin,
show the children how to take the eggs and dip them in
and out. While the wax hardens to an opaque film, we hum

Cristos Aneste and the room bustles, ajabber
with speech. Holding pins firmly, we scratch out mad
designs where the color will fill. Small, flurried hands
etch and scrim the shells. Everyone's fingers whorl
and scratch in names, delicate and final.
Edging the hall's threshold, an April allow-
ance of sun filters through tinted windows. Faces furrow
in solemn concentration. Looking to Elaine, my thoughts clamor

for what is redemptive in illness, for having
a Credo to hold these people to me. Etchings
done, everyone immerses the waxy eggs in the pooled
dye. We ooh together when transfigured eggs are spooned
out, wiped, and dried on the counters. Soft wax
is peeled gingerly, flecked away; more oohs for the tracks
of limned lines, testimonial names.
We burnish the shells with olive oli for a fine sheen.

For a moment, the cultivated, finished eggs hush
the room. Then, every child goes wild in a rush
to compare, to show the nurses, each
other. The bald boy taps my waist. Lined up and speech-
less, they present me with a bright, autographed
egg, communally done. Elaine makes me close my eyes and laughs
when small limbs push at my back to follow
her. They shove my hands in the cool, wet, red dye. The hollow-

eyed girl squeals til tears streak from laughing.
Another child cries, "You'll never get it off!
And today, I don't want to. Today,
we've painted eggs a lively color, not caring
about the body's cells and the cells' incarceration.
I lift my arms to embrace Elaine, dab her nose and chin.
And my hands are vivid red. My hands
are bloody with resurrection

and we are laughing.