25 Hospital Poem

Reading:

Hospital Poem

Life stuff flowed from a bag hung
By a bedside with my loved one’s
Name. Drop by tiny, metered drop, 
Each mirrored on the screen
Alongside other vital numbers
Flashing and alarms waiting to go-off,
It flowed into my darling’s arm.
Not the whole works, so to speak, 
But vital just the same.

As I sat by her bed that day
I’d thought to write some poetry. 
‘Hospital Poem’ I would call it 
(If, that is, I could think of 
Something poetical to say.) 
But not one line - funny or better, poignant -
Came into my mind. Too much agitation
For proper concentration.
Half a dozen monitors peeped, 
Some telling rhythmic heart beats
(Good or bad). Others intermittent, 
Signalled who knows what complaint.
One nurse or another came each minute 
To check some reading and 
Adjust a flow-rate or merely
To provide some words of reassurance 
For those patients who were anxious.

Instead I read a book: a critique of the
Holy Bible. And I began at the beginning
With Genesis, the Jews’ creation myth.
Man, we’re told, was made from dust. 
God then breathed into his nostrils, 
Which brought his soul to life.
He then laid out a pleasant land,
A garden and He called it Eden. 
Only then when this was done
And Adam was established in his home
Did God decide to give him a companion.
So Eve was born, ‘an help meet’ 
Made from one of Adam’s ribs,
An afterthought in second place, 
An also-ran in the human race.
Things got worse when, being weak, 
Eve was tempted by a snake. 
And so began millennia
Of misogyny and denigration
From Saints and self-styled Fathers.

I looked about. The nurses were all women, 
Each skilled in her many tasks, each gentleness
Itself in the way she undertook them.
Six middle-aged ladies did their best
To make life better for those in their care
Though they knew them only as names on a list.
As they worked they joked among themselves
In quiet tones about I knew not what. 
When all was done and it was time to go
I said to one that as I watched them
Go about their healing, I felt humbled
And not just that, but as the sole man there, 
Superfluous and inadequate. 
She smiled a smile that said, 
‘All in a day’s work, dear.’
‘And you have a safe journey home!’
‘Help meets?’ 
They were the mothers of us all!
You don’t have to be a feminist
To be moved by what those women did
And do, week after week, year upon year.

When we come back for the next procedure 
I’ll bring my laptop or my iPad, 
Leave my darling in their care,
And in a quiet corner of the ward
Switch off my hearing aid
And write my poem. 
I have my subject.