28 February 2024 (new)

new wheelchair ramp . . .

a flock of chickens roams

the rain-wet lawn

6 December 2023 (frost moon)

waning frost moon . . .

the home health nurse

leaves her car running

22 November 2023 (November rain)

November rain

our elderly neighbor goes off

in an ambulance

12 September 2023 (bloodwork)

bloodwork

she tells me

I have good veins

7 April 2023 (new meds)

I just want to express gratitude to those readers/friends who reached out to me this week to make sure I was ok. I did post a few haiku that were bleak in tone, but I hasten to assure you that all is well and those poems (including this one) are not representative of my personal reality! But I was really touched that some people in my life read my haiku closely enough to be worried about me and reach out—thank you very much for caring.

***

new meds . . .

fog-wet pussy willows

embrace a power line

October 22: Getting something off my chest

Still worn out from this lingering cold, I left work early, turned on the heating pad, and stretched out on the couch under my faux fur blanket for a necessary nap. I awoke to find our cat lying on my chest, facing me like an inscrutable sphinx. Purring, she licked my chin. She stretched out one soft paw around my neck. For a moment I entertained the thought that she was cuddling up with me out of sympathy, to comfort me. Then I realized that I must have slept through till her dinnertime, when I'd normally be coming home from work. This was confirmed when she began gently chirping at me. She has successfully conditioned my husband to respond to this every morning by waking up and feeding her. I had no problem ignoring her because all I wanted to do was fall back asleep. My "comforter" eventually jumped off me to wait for my husband to come home and feed her.

Comforting nonetheless,
hungry cat on my chest,
tail flicking.

October 18: Carrying eggs

Feeling ill with an incipient cold, I went into work this morning only because I had to; the committee I co-chair was having its monthly meeting. But I fully intended to come home right after the meeting and go back to bed. Well, as things go, I felt a little better as the morning wore on and then got caught up in things, so I ended up working the whole day. Now that I'm home, however, the cold is catching up with me--sore throat, headache, achey joints. Whine and sniffle. It's just a cold, but some days the body just feels so over-sensitive, so fragile. I want to tell it to just toughen up already, a cold virus is nothing; does mind over matter ever work? Instead, I just take more cold meds and huddle on the couch.

A dozen fresh eggs.

I carry them gingerly,

aware of my own fragile shell.

October 19: Soup

That series of inspirational books that began with Chicken Soup for the Soul and then burgeoned absurdly into all sorts of other Chicken Soup books--Chicken Soup for Christian Family Soul, Chicken Soup for Menopause, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul, etc. was onto something: soup does make us feel better. Some scientists have even gone so far as to test the health benefits of chicken soup, proving that its ingredients do apparently help alleviate the symptoms of the common cold by reducing inflammation and a stuffy nose.

I'm not a chicken soup fan, but I can tell you that when I'm feeling kind of achey and chilled--especially this time of year when days are shorter, nights are colder, and coming home from a long day of work in the pitch dark can be kind of depressing--there's no meal that I crave more than my husband's soup with warm chunks of a heated, buttered baguette. Part of it is, of course, the tangible physical satisfaction of warming oneself from the inside out with hot liquid and hearty vegetables. But part of it is the culture of soup, the age-old image of the cauldron on the hearth full of wholesome broth and herbs, stirred all day by Grandmother and ladled out to the family at the big trestle table. It's not just soup--it's a special brew to restore one's health and good cheer--at least long enough for me to make it to bedtime feeling a little more hale and hearty.

First frost this morning,
chilling dark by 6:30.
My husband stirs soup.