It's not that I don't like the hospital. A winter garden in an alder swamp, Those small bouquets of flowers, pert and brave. Where conies now come out to sun and romp, The smell of antiseptic cleaners. As near a paradise as it can be The ill, so wistful in their rooms, so true. And not melt snow or start a dormant tree. My friend, the one who's dying, took me out To where the patients go to smoke, IV's It lifts existence on a plane of snow And oxygen tanks attached to them- One level higher than the earth below, A tiny patio for skeletons. We shared One level nearer heaven overhead, A cigarette, which was delicious but And last year's berries shining scarlet red. Too brief. I held his hand; it felt Like someone's keys. How beautiful it was, It lifts a gaunt luxuriating beast The sunlight pointing down at us, as if Where he can stretch and hold his highest feat We were important, full of life, unbound. On some wild apple tree's young tender bark, I wandered for a moment where his ribs What well may prove the year's high girdle mark. Had made a space for me, and there, beside The thundering waterfall of his heart, So near to paradise, all pairing ends: I rubbed my eyes and thought, "I'm lost." Here loveless birds now flock as winter friends, Content with bud-inspecting. They presume To say which buds are leaf and which are bloom. A feather-hammer gives a double knock. This Eden day is done at two o'clock. An hour of winter day might seem too short To make it worth life's while to wake and sport. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 10. THE PORTRAIT by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI MACGREGOR'S GATHERING by WALTER SCOTT SONNET: 24 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A YOUTH TO HIS FATHER by WALTER R. ADAMS A REPLY TO AN IMITATION OF THE SECOND ODE OF HORACE by RICHARD BENTLEY PSALM 142 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE |