Sputterpub's Blog

The sun was out today by 8 a.m.
The sky beyond the window’s spanking blue.
The weather is inviting me and them
to step outside, inflate our lungs, and do
a bit of normal fall activity.
We’ve spent our time indoors for 20 days
amid the medical telemetry,
in waiting rooms and instrument-filled bays.

Today the stricken patient graduates
to hospitality with less alarm.
Improving hourly, he demonstrates
recovery from catastrophic harm.
And though his course will run for months ahead,
we’re dancing joy today that no one’s dead.

Collecting metaphors, we’re talking out
a family catastrophe. Attacked
by stroke of terrible, we reel about
a hill less steep, a launchpad: inexact
but apt, expressed to call recovery
with optimistic attitudes, of course.
We speak in terms of fight and bravery,
allow no negatives, and hug with force.

It rains outside, but that’s the Portland norm,
and though we’d all adore a beam of sun,
pathetic fallacy would need a storm
compared to this. We’re nodding, everyone:
there is no omen ominous or near —
some time must pass before we’re in the clear.

I’ve been in charge of home and office most
my life, forever skirting boundaries
and splicing lines. I contemplate a host
of questions in proportions and degrees.
Then suddenly a child’s spouse is felled,
propelling me to cast my cares aside.

My friends said they were proud of me. They held
that what I did was hard, but I replied:

It didn’t feel like sacrifice to me,
to drop the usual and book that flight.
This dreadful medical emergency
shot shades of daily gray to black and white.
There is no haze. My path is clearly lit.
This time I’m certain what’s appropriate.