Purgatory?

 

I was laying in my hospital bed today (and despite what anyone says, sitting on your ass all day is not a pleasant experience) when it struck me as how similar the experience must be to Purgatory. Not the old medieval concept of compensatory torture, but as remedial and corrective therapy to bring one to a healthy status.

The nurses are like firm but helpful ministers, the regimins and routines designed to bring you back to 'factory specs,' as it were. The food is adequately good but not so great as to tempt you to gluttony or concupiscence (I've often wondered if I could request salt and pepper shelters and a bottle of ketchup - which has more sugar than you'd expect). 

It is in fact a kind of torture but obviously beneficial in the long run, like training a dog to the leash. The ultimate goal is to remove the leash,free the dog from choking, and leave it obedient to good habits.

It seems almost ungrateful to compare it with torture. But the suffering is there; it is contingent on the consequences of my own actions with perhaps a dash of bad luck. It is the duty (cheerfully fulfilled) of the nurses (angel/agents of the Purgatory simile) to help me get through it.

Well, I'm Back

I did not accomplish my goal of 3000 posts by my 63rd birthday; instead I found myself in the hospital fighting an infected right foot. For a while it seemed I might lose the leg, right up to the knee. But thanks to the efforts of my doctor it was confined to a wound and the loss of a little toe. Right now I am undergoing recovery and rehabilitation at a place called AVIR at Warm Springs, a place at which, coincidentally, my grandmother on my father's side spent the last years of her life.

I have a brand-new laptop computer, of a basic but totally adequate nature, which my brother John went through some pains to help me obtain. My niece Morgandy ("who has the Knowin's of the Doin's") helped set it up. This old dog is struggling to learn new tricks and get back on track, especially with my scripts for The Wizard, the Prince, the Warrior, and His Son. This is my first effort at a post in over half a month; let's hope they get better as I get better,

Grackles: Another Early College Poem

GRACKLES

 

Emptied by summer, the parking lot

Shimmered like silver, scoured by rain,

Flared to gray fire under the early sun.

I saw grackles wading in disdain

 

Of the wet ground, pecking the grass

That grew in a fringe. The fronds

Waved above water in the morning wind,

Speckling with dew the rain-fed ponds.

 

Drawn by the nightly rain, snails crawled,

Salting the dark pavement with ghostly white.

The grackles watched sideways with fly-green eyes,

Then snapped at their shells with delight.

 

I left the grackles sporting there,

Playing, the free lords of the day.

I sighed, bent down, took up my books,

And, slavelike, heavy, went my way.

Notes

Why grackles? I think mainly because I liked saying 'grackle.' It seems I had only recently discovered the technical name of these 'black birds,' and their ubiquity and commonness put them on a par with sparrows as symbols of the everyday struggle to survive. I was waiting for a shuttlebus at the college parking lot, a rather dreary and interminable process.

AI Embellishments of Old Illustrations

A Weak and Foolish Thing

 

Forest Garden

FOREST GARDEN

 

There's a forest in the garden

Where, shaded by tomato trees,

Plastic tigers, grave and solemn,

Lie and take their noon-day ease.

 

Where Pop has built the earthen dams

All around the eggplant plot,

Brown and baggy plastic hippos

Belch, and blow their bubbling snot.

 

High in twisted clover stems

Monkeys swing, tree to tree.

Amid the clods and shells of snails

Roam great gorillas, fierce and free.

 

I lie watching on my stomach,

Cautiously, through jungle grass,

A gray line of new elephants

As they ponderously plod past.

 

2021 Diary: The Last Few Days of July

7/29/2021: Up about 5 AM, prayers and Bible. Fell asleep during cartoons. A little after 9 AM went to FD, got (besides some food) a new belt and the Kung Fu Panda trilogy. Watched “Heartbreak House” until about noon. Went in at 3:30 PM to cook supper (chili). Kept expecting Kam to come home, but Susan took him to the shop. Burst of wind and rain about 5 PM. When I went in to wash dishes at 8 PM, I could hardly get anything out of Kam about the TV interview, just that he thought it went well. Worked up the final integration of the Birthday Books into the shelves and read about half of “Padre Porko”. Would that July would end.

 

7/30/2021: Up at 5 AM.  Prayers, Bible. Cartoons. Checked my RBFCU account, saw it had the next deposits, so ordered from HEB. Started frying taters about 1 PM, or at least gathering the stuff and prepping. At 2 PM went out and waited and the delivery came, this time by a nice lady aided by her son. I always wonder if people are judging me by Susan’s house, not realizing that I am personally poorer than they are (probably) (though rich in family love). Humped everything in in FIVE loads, though it was helped by carrying the sodas and teas in a Walmart cloth bag. Called John and we had a long yak. Done frying by 3:30 PM. Went in and as I cooked the fish Kameron and I waited for and watched his appearance on KENS news. It was a very creditable performance. They had him wear a hat to be more interesting. Went in and washed at 7:30 PM, then made myself a big burger. Bed about 9:30 PM.

 

7/31/2021: Up about 5 AM again. Prayers and caught up diary. Bible. Cartoons at 6 AM, and I slept in and out through them until 8 AM. Had eggs and cheese at breakfast. At 11 AM took trash out and talked with Susan; she was going through the storehouse to find a mama-san cushion for Kam. Reading “A Celtic Temperament” on and off all day. Played DQ8 a while. For lunch/dinner (about 3:30 PM) had hamburger, onion, cauliflower, and cheese mix. It’s now 7 PM and I’m about halfway through ACT. Saturdays are so dreadfully lonely. I seldom see anyone as they are all busy and I have no cooking to do.

Notes

'Oh my God, I was so happy then!' 'Happy? You were miserable! You told me so yourself!' 'I was happy, I just didn't know it.' I needn't have fretted so. All Julys end ... inevitably.