This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....


Saturday 19 July 2008

Joseph

(Magnetic healer, Philippines)


 He told us about the jagged scar
on his neck. Tumour.
Even the Manila doctors
wouldn’t cut near the artery.

He climbed the mountain
behind his village and prayed,
one hand cradling his throat.
The swelling burst and drained.

The people said, 'You must be
a healer. Cure this boy.'
He prayed, laid hands; the boy lived.

'I can’t explain,'
said my doctor back home.
'Your cancer’s gone.'



[Poem #21]
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