A Poem About Surgery, Santuary and Autumn

                                       

                        A Gathering of Leafy Edges

This rippling creek, my sanctuary.  I listen

to water music, body tense, though panic and pain

are moving on. He recoups back at the house, with mended heart

and dull gray hospital socks warming his feet. I remember

praying in that chilly pre-surgery room: naked, vulnerable

beneath his gown, beneath my fear.

We sent love to his skipping heart valve. Asked muscle and bone

to accept the cutting. This knife is miraculous, not savage, we

said.

How else would the body understand? Doesn’t a stabbing

or a surgical repair elicit a similar wound?

Summer crocus blooming along our walks, the day the farmer came  home from hosptial 

 On this day, as creek waters flow, I ponder blood 

pulsing through human hearts. Wild asters nod as leaves

sashay to earth. Intuitively, I know he and I have

stepped across a surprising threshold. Spring memories

have faded. Summer has drained away too, quick and cool

like well water circling the hole at the bottom of the old pump

trough. In a paradox of blowing gales and subtle hints, autumn

has truly arrived. Time measured in births, deaths, cancer,

wellness, slamming doors and loving, relocating and a

cracked open chest.

 We have grown, fruited, released many seasons.

I process that waking moment - seared

into time. Waking to a repaired heart valve, he in a haze

of pain, me watching his instinctive recoil of body.  A too

late attempt at shielding vulnerable parts,

his gasp of breath and flail of arms, fighting that gagging tube

stuck down his throat. As outside leaves fall in colors red

and gold. Life ignites in beauty and sometimes in

shock. Nurses hover over, hold down arms, murmur courage,

check beeping monitors.  And I wake too, as helpless to assist as I 

am in halting the flow of time.

Somewhere, someone awakes in the ICU. Hopefully.  Painfully. 

All we can do is stand by, clutching hearts, breathing,

praying, companions always awaking to beauty and struggle. After

trauma, I take myself down to the water.  Where gurgle of brook

and creak of swing comfort me.

Where red sticks of dogwood erupt from green banks like crimson

sentinels cheering onlookers into full, wild living!  The throaty call of 

a raven cuts through sighs of breeze and sway of trees, inviting a

sweet  s l o w  slipping of tension from my

shoulders.

Our yard and heart bench, another sanctuary.

Tell me dear oak, standing so thick and silent, does autumn

tighten your middle? Does your breath catch and your sap

run anxious before calmly letting go?  Do you watch your leaves

fall in molten gold, and smile with unburdening?

I’ll tell you my story and you tell me yours. On that day, while sugar

maples held their color and clouds bounced recklessly in brilliant 

skies, a surgical team stopped my beloved’s heart. A strange 

intimacy, no? Closer to him than I’ll ever be, yet they don’t  

know how he likes his coffee. Do surgeons think of huddled 

humanity left in waiting rooms across the halls? 

If they did, could they bear it?

Wind gusts ruffle oak boughs as the tree replies: “Surgeons

are trees, strong and soundless, setting bodies and hearts on fire.”

Ah yes, submitting to the scalpel is like falling in red and gold. Fear 

is the storm that rips leaf from nurturing branch. A gathering of leafy 

edges floating softly to their other mother – earth, is trust. 

Cutting, curing, waiting, healing, falling, living blur together, the 

colors of autumn, of life. The heart beats. And loves. Broken hearts 

heal. We too, like leaves of autumn, turn gold and red, glow, fall, 

and are cradled by earth.  

Beautiful trees and hills on the other side of our driveway