What Will I Do/ When I Can No Longer Write? Poem by Shalom Freedman

What will I do
When I can no longer write?
When I lose enthusiasm for everything?
When I am just too weak and too sick
To really think at all?
What will I do when I come to the end
And am yet still alive
Still suffering?

How will I find meaning
When I can no longer do what has given me meaning
All these years?

Will I like countless others
Go through the terrible time
Until the end,
Unable to help those near
Who suffer at my suffering-
And who will
when it is over
Know a certain relief
and the beginning
of another kind of pain?