I am Broken Cannon

Blood Ties: As The Eldest - Part 1

My brother’s diagnoses of brain cancer at age 26, took a family that was already listing in a cold sea after the sudden death of mum/wife little more than a year prior, and ran us aground.

This is the beginning of a new series of poems for Frontier Verse: Blood Ties.

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Post-Diagnoses

So now:
I am broken cannon; old wet ammunition.
The tide always rises to wash out my cries of
Hearty supplications

    Falling-breezeblock heartbeats
    quantum traffic Gridlock –
    nausea Possesses me
    The Feet, mechanical –

When will
The waters, I wonder, sink slowly back seaward
Our weighty moon dragging this burden behind her
Reviving my prayers

                    - N.C-J

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'Six Marines' by Eugène Isabey - 1833 (cropped)

My brother is a very interesting guy. He’s strong-willed, independent, loving, sensitive, weird, and fun. He doesn’t like talking about the diagnoses he’s been given so I will respect that and say in short - it isn’t good. At least, so they say. At least, not if he can do anything about it. If you are interested in reading his work, head to his substack where he occasionally shares his cancer diary as well as tall tales of varied adventures working, travelling, and learning.

As for me:

It is hard to be personally helpless. It is even more difficult to be powerless to help.

Being on the sidelines is excruciating when dealing with those we love suffering. All we want is to fix the problem. We’ll throw money at it if that’ll fix it. We’ll pray, we’ll read, we’ll not talk if they want, we’ll talk if they want, whatever. No matter who we are to the person we love, we want to take *the thing* away.

As for me, I am an eldest sibling, and I believe that carries with it natural responsibilities as a caretaker and leader. It hurts my heart to not be able to do anything. I want to be doing more, but I have nothing to give. I want to take action! I want to switch places. It’s not that I don’t have nothing left to give. I never started with anything useful to give at all.

But my life goes on. His life goes on. I resign myself to supporting in the little ways I can. Walk alongside him, or anyone in distress, if that’s wanted or needed. Keep praying, writing. Maybe just go along as normal for awhile because things are ok right now. Be able to go with the flow. Get ready and anticipate some hard heart-work, but don’t live in so much anticipation that it cripples the present. That’s one thing I’ve certainly learned from Matt; be grateful for the present moment. Be grateful for everything we’ve been given. It is good to give thanks. It may even have healing psychosomatic properties. I’m thankful to have learned more about thankfulness, in all of this.

For now, though; now we sit in cold salty-wet sand where the Fraser kisses the Pacific and await unpredictable tides. I anticipated an invasion and ran to arm the guns in our defense. My efforts were fruitless. There’s nothing for me to fight. The enemy exists in places I cannot reach. Instead, I inhabit this brackish space together with family, and we wait. We go on with our days, ready to be there for each other when we need to be — however we need to be.

The poem is about that. It’s also an homage to a Dickinson poem #372 which captures her experience of the Formal Feeling that comes after great pain. I hope my work is in some small way a reflection to hers.

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Thank you for sharing your thoughts!