Post-Op

The full story behind this poem can be read here: Heart Surgery.

Post-Op

Here, calm nurses reign
and sagacious doctors, majestic in white
confer and scurry about.
Green lines track and blip across the screens
that measure breath, groans, heartbeat,
evidence of this, your latest resurrection.
Outside, a pastoral scene
meadows bursting upwards
jubilant with spring, seed-heavy,
fragrant with a million
scarlet flowers, haven of finches
and twittering, earth-bound things.
Your own sap blooms
through scars and crimson bandages
and leaking rivulets, missed by errant nurses.
A clock ticks softly
reminding us what’s left
and other certainties of time
that all must pass this way and be bereft.
Beyond the window other lives
unfold in play
and idle cattle stand
then nomad clouds, a caravanserai
in convoy voyage aimlessly across indifferent sky.
The white sheet immaculate
hides your grief and wounds.
A pulse flutters briefly in your neck
a trapped insect trying to get out.
You lie, waiting
inert upon the bed,
pale Lazarus, companion-friend,
returning from the dead.

– Jogyata.

Back to: Jogyata's Poetry Index.