The Danish Angel


Our male nurse stands at attention

in the threshold

of the cardiac wing

assessing his morning’s work


in a loud voice

he commands the four of us


Gentlemen, awaken please

it is a new day.


Looking intensely

through a morphine miasma

I follow Olav as he rouses

an anesthetized old man

from a coma


he is slid helplessly

from bed to chair

rag doll head

flops onto his chest

the pallor and smell

of sweat ripens

in the dead air


he too has had heart surgery.


Olav gently washes his face

arms chest scrubs his back

bends to listen and whisper


both have been soldiers

in foreign hell holes

have killed

the old man mumbles

blood and soil

Olav says, have courage.


Washed dressed shaved hair combed

a biting lotion patted on

a weak smile ripples

across the man’s face


Olav steps back to examine his work


I struggle up from my pillow

to see the transformation

choke on my swollen throat

where the tubes have been

fall back into the tangled bed.


Okay!

Olav claps his hands

looks directly at me

addresses me in Danish

the language of my childhood


You are next.

Fragments

I have reached the age where even a spring

rain falling on the spring ground can make me

less of what I am.

                       Susan Musgrave from

                       One Evening, the Wind Rising, It Began

I am that age now

that is how long it took me

to understand

that time rushes by

flashes of enzymes

in the brain

waves of emotion

set off by senses


a brush with death so close

I had a year to think about it

that’s what slowed me down

enough to understand


the meaning

of a meadow in the alpine

forbs flowing in adiabatic winds

tears in my eyes

at the sight of them.

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© Copyright, 2015, Peter Christensen.
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