My Poetry - Intensive Care Unit

Intensive Care Unit

My room’s a garden.
See the hummingbird’s
a shuttlecock over

the japonica tops.
Japanese Maple dances
in a crimson skirt

of delicate fringe, but
the jasmine are shy.
A solo flute plays

a bright fuchia tune.
Listen, Calliope breathes me.
And I am

a wild flying dove
just now released.
I leap into the blue

on vivace wings.
For I am
flying home.

Annotation:

 

  1. Italics to denote stream of consciousness.
  2. Enjambment of the lines, which is the running of one line or stanza to the next without syntactical break.
  3. In a poem or work of fiction, the narrator “I” or “my” is not necessarily the author.
  4. Calliope (means beautiful voice) one of the 9 Muses in Greek mythology; she was the Muse of epic poetry.
  5. Calliope was the “nickname” of the ventilator in my patient’s room.
  6. I wrote this poem after a patient of mine died.
  7. Another angle on the theme of home.