Will I walk again,
Tillie mumbled,
lost in the fog of
her knee operation.
The surgeon predicted
she'd toss her cane away
in two months.
Still in a fog, she asked
if she'd walk the way
she walked before,
with the same locomotion,
as her husband called it,
a walk he studied
through binoculars
behind lace curtains
from the upstairs window
sitting in his wheelchair
as she strolled through
the garden, picking a
bouquet, creating another
sunrise in his day.
I really enjoyed this, Donal. Very compact but so much warmth and so much pathos.
ReplyDeleteI agree, excellent; pathos almost bordering on lost empathy; pithy and haunting. I always enjoy your work.
ReplyDeleteRobert and Rick,
ReplyDeleteI thank you both for your comments. You both know that poems arrive in different ways. Some you make and some you record. My wife recently had an operation on her knee and she's a gardener and was wondering if she'd be able to garden again. Since I'm not in a wheelchair yet, I was happy to have the rest of the poem just "arrive." All that I did was try to maintain the tone without blubbering. Writing is a miracle for those of us who can't help but do it. This is a nice poem and I'm especially happy for that because recent poems have tended to be "dark," to use a word I see used more and more these days. But in poetry you take what you get. In fiction, you can manufacture more.
Yes, this poem is especially lovely and touching.
ReplyDelete