Greenhousing

Arthur = Arthur Ritis = arthritis (autoimmune + osteo-)

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For some time, I could feel that I lived in a flat,

with my lodger, old Arthur, the beast.

Once per week I’d put on an appropriate hat

and he’d let us go out. But that ceased.

 

Arthur strengthened; I weakened. We’re homey these days,

going out once per month. That’s just life.

After thirty-five years, I know all his ways;

I’d predicted, prepared for, the strife.

 

So we live in a greenhouse today, as I’ve made

a new build inside my morphine-mind.

It’s outdoorsy; there’s sun, plants and flowers, some shade

where we need it. So much, still, to find!

 

And the visitors come, and are welcome – our friends

of all animal orders, why not?

“It is pleasant, and practical,” dear Word-Bird ends,

“to amend, then enjoy, one’s life’s lot.”

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Forthcoming on Word-Bird’s World

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This poem, too, is something of a scene-setter; my thanks to Word-Bird for accepting it for her personal poetry journal earlier this year. I think the indication that ‘Arthur’ is ‘Arthur Ritis’ aka arthritis will help place the poem as one of my Horrible Health pieces, especially if the reader happens to be familiar with ‘Living with Arthur Ritis’, a poem that Editor Mike Burch published on The HyperTexts in November 2023. That poem is in my second collection, accepted by Kelsay Books in 2024. Thanks to all!

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As anyone familiar with chronic illness will be aware, there are conditions that close a lot of doors, even slamming them sometimes. I’m grateful that the outside world remains occasionally accessible to me, albeit within the confines of a tight travel radius, and that my imagination seems to increase its scope as I become less able to travel.

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Next: Swanuary