Watching Sunrises and Sunsets from my Seventh Floor Hospital Bed
For those three months I felt like I was on holiday
I was sweet sixteen and I awoke all groggy Feeling all weak and woozy I saw my leg was suspended in the air Where am I… where … oh where … The smiling nurse lifted my shoulders and head Slightly up from the hospital bed God! Was that my leg at a forty-five degree angle? She reached across me, her pony-tail, tickled as it dangled I sipped her offering of water but it trickled down my neck I mumbled like my Irish friend, ‘feck’!
With steel rods on either side My leg was bandaged with cotton wool, so wide But still my blood seeped through A reddish hue, like a sunset, with darkness round the edges I turned away, glanced beyond at the window ledge A fat pigeon cooed And the glorious expanse of sky beyond Was all yellow and pink and red hues Morphing cosmic energies, with each tick of the clock Reminding us that some day, we’ll All, from life’s journey, dock.
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When my parents acquired first one, then two businesses, I was kept very very busy with barely a moment to myself, from the age of 11 to 16.
There was school where I attempted to finish my homework in the lunch break, and then straight from school, all the evenings, and most of every weekend, I was needed to work in the family businesses.
The first time I had zero demands on me was when I went to hospital as a 16 year old.
I suddenly had time to think, to read, to observe the goings on around me and to just ‘be’.
It was bliss.
The best moments of each day were lying in that hospital bed, with nobody spreading their neediness out before me, or telling me what to do, and I could just watch the clouds go by and relish seeing the glorious sunrises and sunsets.
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A big thank you to Sahil for this prompt.
I’d like to mention a lovely poem celebrating Spring, by William J. Spirdione:
And here’s Arun, on the power of connecting to nature.