Bittersweet October

Because we have turn-about sun and rain

in a world where weather has gone mad

tumbling over each other too quickly,

the abundant growth of Spring exaggerated,

everything flourishing faster than ever

richly adorning the whole landscape, 

surrounding us wherever we look 

with burgeoning leaves and flowers,

every hot day and every wet one

enticing our senses, even as

the swift changes set us reeling …

Our reactions too are rapidly

changing – one day we think,

This is Summer, ahead of time,

only to wake to a sudden return,

bewildering in its rapidity, to Winter.

Even as we rejoice, we begin to expect,

reliably unreliable, constant overturning.

October in the Southern Hemisphere is officially in the middle of Spring.

Written for Magaly's prompt for Friday Writings #148: Bittersweet October, at Poets and Storytellers United.

Hospital Haiku, part 2

home from hospital …

my phone starts recognising 

my face again 

27/9/24

not a lap cat

but after my absence

lingers there

28/9/24

four days home

I manage to shower

at last

29/9/24

convalescence –

lost in the limbo

of all this rest

*

all my life 

the same navel –

now scar-changed

1/10/24

Hospital Haiku, part 1

suddenly

from my hospital bed

bright moon

*

post-op

every fart

a triumph

23/9/24

bedpan –

dignity replaced

by laughter

*

anaesthetists

handsome tall dark slim –

bonus

*

‘don’t get cranky with us’

nurse at end of  night shift –

crankily

apologised later –

double shift while others

strike for higher pay

24/9/24

ultrasound 

machine woofs like a dog –

can it smell fear?

*

both arms bruised

(blood tests and cannulas)

I file my nails

25/9/24

bowel movement …

I decide I’ve written enough

excretory haiku

*

why can’t I sleep? 

I don’t tell the nurse my grief

friends recently lost

*

scant sleep 

but I see dawn again

through the ward window 

*

waiting, waiting –

 no-one tells me when 

I might go home 

26/9/24