Parable of the Breathing Tube

“You won’t even know it’s there,” said the surgeon.

          “My brother-in-law sure did,” I replied referring to the incident in the ICU which I witnessed.

          AS he was coming out of his sleep, he became aware of the tube down his throat and began struggling with it so violently that he had to be held down by three nurses while he was put into an induced coma. He stayed that way for three days.

          “You won’t even be aware of it,” the surgeon said, “and if you are you won’t remember.”

          I decided to go with that. In the end you have to put your faith in something.

          Still, some days later as I was wheeled into the operating theatre, the last conscious thought was of that tube down my throat.

          Many hours later as I slowly awoke, I remember the doctor saying, “the breathing tube is out now, you can speak.”

          “What breathing tube?” I asked.

          The thing is, if you don’t know something has happened to you, has it really happened?

The Albino

So these pigeons wing in from the wild sky,

their coats a rainbow sheen, but when the sun goes in,

they’re all drab, all except one, a pretty little albino,,

white as the Taj Mahal, and when they descend

on the grass patch near the footbridge, and start pecking away,

happy as diners in a food court, you can just tell

these guys all hang out together, weekends, whenever,

them and their albino mate and I ask Daz, ‘cause he knows

everything, why we can’t do that, Daz, coloureds and whites,

one happy family and he says because we’re not pigeons, that’s why.

*pic courtesy of Rodolfo Clix on pexels.com

On Being Compared to a Gnat

You have the attention span,

he said,

of a gnat.

I thought [briefly]

about that:

the skim

the look;

the review

not the book;

the single

not the CD;

a movement not

the whole symphony;

the single poem—

a story won’t do—

especially if short

think haiku.

Life’s short.

Try this, that.

Stay light,

says the gnat.

Ark

Once it carried five

of us

and two pets

towards a bright new future

but it was anything but

plain sailing

 

with a son who rocked

the boat

a daughter who kept throwing

herself overboard

and a younger afraid to put

her head out

in the storm

gathering hard above us

 

but the dove came back telling us

things had eased

 a shaft of sunlight spotlighting

our position :

our son had found calm

the elder daughter steadfastness

the younger courage

 

now it’s just us

sailing ahead

my wife and I ,

a pair as God

commanded .

Do You Know What Your Rooster is Up To?

As she lay in the hospice ,

cranked up by morphine,

she thought of Mr. Barnes

That little red rooster from her childhood days

In Battlelake, Minnesota.

That Barnes — he was something,

She said

Puffed out his chest and walked through life:

“I want the biggest and the best and the most of whatever

You’ve got”

He had attitude.

He had a harem.

One day when she was home from school with chickenpox

She watched Mr. Barnes

Fornicate with his hens forty six times and that was when

She was awake.

He was the sheik of Battlelake

Even strutting off to other farms.

That Mr. Barnes!

He thought the whole world belonged to him and beyond that —

The sun, the stars, the Milky Way — all of it

& as she lay dying

She hoped to meet him on the other side.

 

do you have a hero? what qualities do you admire in that person?

do you have an animal you admire, either in literature or real life?

The Parable of the Breathing Tube

“You won’t even know it’s there,” said the surgeon.

“My brother-in-law sure did,” I replied referring to the incident in the ICU which I witnessed.

AS he was coming out of his sleep, he became aware of the tube down his throat and began struggling with it so violently that he had to be held down while he was put back to sleep. He stayed that way for three days.

“You won’t even be aware of it,” the surgeon said, “and if you are you won’t remember.”

I decided to go with that. In the end you have to put your faith in something.

Still, some days later as I was wheeled into the operating theatre, the last conscious thought was of that tube down my throat.

Many hours later as I slowly awoke, I remember the doctor saying, “the breathing tube is out now, you can speak.”

“What breathing tube?” I asked.

The thing is, if you don’t know something has happened to you, has it really happened?

 

* inspired by Billy Mac’s ‘A Daughter’s Love’ from his ‘Superman can’t find a phone booth’ blog

The Cat and the Canary

The cat had just killed a canary.

Bad, bad cat, said the bird lover who was staying at my place for the weekend.

Easy, I said, Remember what happened at the restaurant last night when you ordered barramundi for the first time and complained it was too fishy?

Yes. So?

Well, I said, you may as well berate a barramundi for being a fish as to castigate a cat for killing a canary.

The Parable of the Pearl Oyster

 

I envy the patience of pearl oysters

Which can labour up to twenty years

To produce a pearl of great price.

 

The freshwater ones lacking the deep

Patience of their seawater cousins

Produce a pearl in a mere six.

 

But I have the shallow patience

of a gnat: a poem in a few minutes

else I lose interest.

 

No wonder I produce little of lasting

Value.