Sometimes healing comes in ways we don't expect.
 

Beneath Bethesda's colonnades, I lay my bedroll upon the stones. I, time traveler, walking wounded, Cleaved millennia to seek healing; For ancient microdisks have told An alien angel guards this pool. When the surface ripples, it is a ruffling wing Sweeping the sacred mirror, Healing the first to step in. Alone but for the constant quarrel of pain, I trudged miles from a desert dropgate, Pain, my dark angel, forty years fallen upon me, Forty years twisting my back and limbs, An agony of presence, eating away my innocence, Sepsis of the spirit made flesh, incurable they said. I would drive it out for good, A Pilgrimage, ritual exorcism, (Ever stronger pain killers no longer work). Hoping to be first after the kiss Of evanescent feathers, I lurch forward;   But in the press of supplicants, My knotted muscles move too slow; I cannot reach the water alone. Once again research has failed me; Secret sensors show no angel, Only a stirring of wind.  I despair.   What!  Who comes here?  Another   Whose seamless robes are not of local manufacture, A future seeker like myself?  Who is this Whose burning eyes seem to look through me, Whose hands know my demon pain? (Something ancient, half remembered) A smile transfigures his face. "Go and sin no more," he says. Am I a fool to believe?  I take up my bed and walk.