Warning

warning —

fairies live here

(Neighbourhood Watch)

from my front window

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

For David, on His Birthday

How is it that you are 57?

I remember your birth:

panting for breath on the hospital bed,

the nurses chiding me for swearing 

at pain like nothing I’d known.

Then, at the end, I thought

I’d split in half from sternum to crotch.

I didn’t care, so long as you got born.

I wanted you in the world!

After you were born, groggy

in my unaccustomed arms, 

you were very gentle

for one who had caused so much pain

struggling to break free into the world. 

You slept on my breast. 

I was afraid I might drop you, 

and handed you back to the nurses.

When I took you home,

I saw you push your tiny arms

out of the blanket I’d been told

to swaddle you in, and wave them

softly in the air, gazing up at them

in wonder – I recognised 

the little, fluttery movements I’d felt 

when I was carrying you in my womb.

As an infant you were full of

delight in the world, and you

loved me dearly, crooning to yourself

as you toddled round the house,

'Mummy, Mummy, Mummy,

I love you. You my good girl.'

As a schoolboy, you revealed a dry wit.

Something in you was always wise 

and knowledgeable – your father and I

both used to ask your advice 

as if you were an adult, and you gave it

thoughtfully and well.

We like to have deep, revealing talks,

you and I, when we get together –

not all the time, but at least

once per visit. As a man,

you have weathered problems and sorrows 

without losing your fairness of mind

and your loving nature.

You look after me now, in what ways you can.

All in all, you have been and are

one of my greatest blessings.

I still want you in the world.

An exercise in Natalie Goldberg's book, The True Secret of Writing, asks one to list occasions one might write a poem for, then write it in the style of Wang Wei, a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty – i.e. truthfully and in 'unfancy' language.

Blazon for Poppi:

my cat Poppi who is as wise as night-time

and as sensible as the day;

who mothers me as I mother her;

my cat Poppi who is small and sleek,

not black though she looks black,

but sable, red-brown in the light;

who loves warmth and lies by the heater

or tucks herself under blankets;

whose little face is the sweetest;

who loves to cuddle, purring;

who, being profoundly deaf,

has mastered body language 

and an expressive miaow;

who likes to rest on her pillow 

on my bed, to be near me;

who is nocturnal and spends her nights

up on the window-sill, gazing out at the street

or in daytime peers through the big glass door 

at nothing I can see, but she is fascinated;

who is Burmese and likes to be up high,

leaping with agility, despite her old age; Poppi who 

is the perfect cat for me at this late time of my life.

A blazon is a French form which lists attributes of the beloved.