A beloved friend has recently had surgery, and I have been with them in hospital for 48 hours, getting out for a few sunshine and aimless wandering breaks. All I want to say now is - whatever they pay surgeons - and nurses - it isn't enough. Any society that does not reward these remarkable hard-working life-givers and savers fully is doing something utterly wrong.
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
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