by me
In this old house all is still within
And nothing moves inside us
Except the thing that eats the bones
Can they isolate the virus?
She pulls the skirting board away
To show a heart stopping display of white
So we’ll call the specialists to her home
As the deadly stuff eats up her bones
But if Rentokil will not suffice
Her bones will lock in blocks of ice
The value of her house will tumble in a trice.
I wrote this poem many many years ago, when my mother, crippled by the family arthritis, was still alive. I had been staying with my parents in their retirement bungalow and had just visited a Uni friend who had lived in Thailand for many years. We had stayed in her old house in Jesmond, which she and her husband had kept as a student let. And we found that it was full of dry rot - we found this fierce white fluff behind the skirting boards.
So, as that was in my poetry writing days, I conflated the two things in the poem. I am not saying it is a wonderful poem or anything - I feel I should have drawn more of a poetic conclusion from it somehow. But there it is, what I wrote at the time. Plus it seems a good excuse to blog one of the Captain's amazing fungi photos - a white one - a Coral Fungus.
My mother, when completely crippled and effectively living and sleeping in one of those special chairs, said that she sometimes used to dream that she was a child again, running and skipping about.
And I so much hope those dreams will come true when and IF Jehovah wakes her from the dreamless sleep of death. Then she will be completely healed and full of energy.
As Isaiah promises:
"At that time the eyes of the blind will be opened,
And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.
At that time the lame will leap like the deer,
- Isaiah 35:5,6
In the restored earthly paradise, the lame will leap like the deer. It will be such a joyful awakening when it comes.
However, at the moment, I, as a damaged child of Adam, am creaking about like well, not at all like a deer - an elderly tortoise maybe? And Captain B sent me a short video - very short - about Psoriatic Arthritis, which it seems I have - along with everything else. It's getting to the stage now that when they ask me at the hospital to give them a list of the conditions I have and the medicines I take, it might be quicker to list the ones I don't have and the medicines I am not taking.
I do feel guilty about what I am costing the NHS and try to do what I can to keep as healthy as I can. And, interestingly, by sticking to a diabetic diet I am also (apparently) doing the right things for the P.Arthritis. Apparently it is a good idea to avoid wheat completely... so maybe my occasional treat of a slice of wholemeal bread (Abel and Cole) will have to go. Apparently Vitamin D and K are very important too.
We both take a Vitamin D tablet every morning, and looking up Vit.K it seems to be leafy veggies that are important. I am fairly good on my veggies - veggie soup for lunch most days - but can certainly try to up the total. I have a lovely stir fry cabbage and carrot recipe from Madhur Jaffrey that I have made for years, and have already made a couple of times this year. I must keep at it. Maybe it is something I will make weekly from now on. Especially now I have found some lentil rice in Holland & Barrett that I like.
Our sofa cushions came back from the Stuffers on Tuesday. I spent some of the afternoon on the sofa giving them a test run. Exhausting work, but someone has to do it. All seems good. While I dozed over my testing work Captain Butterfly escaped through an open window and flew off to the Wetland Trust where a bittern - a bittern! - had been seen. He managed to see it, twice, and even snatched a photo.
If you want to see it, it is on his current blog - linked to this blog via The Captain's Log.
I have never seen one - or heard one. I would love to hear a bittern BOOM.
Talking of such things, Winterwatch and Chris Packham are back. Something positive amidst all the tragic and gloomy news. The natural world - the creation - is so wonderful, so interesting, and there is so much to learn about it. We, the human family, are only at the beginning - well, in fact we are still waiting to be got back to the beginning, the starting line of perfection and paradise earth when our real learning, our real accomplishments and our real happiness will begin.
Not long now hopefully.
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