Ye, I liked that term, too, Max.
Maybe a few small cuts here & there, but the narrative feels right, & familiar too…
Maybe shift
a slow walk-about is tried
wrapped in one's old kimono
to
tried a slow walk-about
Doug
On Dec 4, 2013, at 3:50 AM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Welcome back to timid normality, Max. Sounds bracing, despite your cares, the company you found. The post-
> op tram trip heroic.
>
> Bill
>
> On Wed, Dec 4th, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Home After Three Nights Away
>>
>> Release from hospital - euphoric
>> even after only three nights.
>> Going there by tram felt right,
>> submitting to the big machine.
>>
>> Getting wheeled in to the cheery
>> anesthetist and succumbing...
>> stirring later wondering when
>> will the surgeon do his stuff?
>>
>> He'd done it. First night after,
>> with lower body numbness and -
>> one's first-ever catheter -
>> felt hard, but in the other beds
>>
>> were chaps taking it harder.
>> General admiration of nurses.
>> Next day was the lowest,
>> too dim to chat when she arrives,
>>
>> the beloved, with the daily paper
>> and chocolate, my laptop
>> and her smile. Taking a walk
>> round the ward carrying gear
>>
>> seemed out of the question.
>> But appetite returns, restlessness;
>> a slow walk-about is tried
>> wrapped in one's old kimono
>>
>> (exclaimed at by old Tim -
>> he who was in the army the day
>> Pearl Harbour was bombed,
>> and then Darwin; lordy, such
>>
>> old-style rural drawl he and his wife
>> and son commune in, like Dad
>> and Dave in the old wireless show).
>> Rob, opposite, is up to a walk,
>>
>> so we go together, we discover
>> our New Zealand background
>> and stories. Never buy the franchise
>> for the cafe at the Rotorua Airport.
>>
>> Once the catheter is out (ouch),
>> a timid normality resumes,
>> the nurses with their checking
>> bring steady reassurance.
>>
>> Fancy hospital food being appetising!
>> Fancy the air-con being stuck on Cool.
>> Fancy the lovely variety of nurses;
>> the big windows showing Melbourne
>>
>> at its spring best. Old Tim has been
>> in agony, now he's telling me Look,
>> lovely women walking past. And -
>> country hick he ain't! a local man,
>>
>> same house for sixty years, same job,
>> waterworks, for forty. Well, Rob
>> and I, our waterworks fixed, can
>> leave. Good luck, Tim. I feel so good
>>
>> I skip the cab rank, take a tram clanking
>> home. Slowly up the birch walk.
>> Buzz, buzz. It's me, dear, slowly up
>> the stairs, so happy to be home with you.
>>
>>
>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Something else is out there
godamnit
And I want to hear it
C.D.Wright
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