Poetry Corner: Recovery

POETRY CORNER

Ganga. Painting by Beata Wrzal.

– 5/02/18

Hosted by Kathabela Wilson

This is a brave theme, and one which resonates with all of us. Life is not always gentle, but reveals the resilience and creativity we have. In holding hands with one another, and sharing words and emotional strength, we weather these storms and bring out our own rainbows that heal and revive us. Thank you especially to Marta for giving us the gift of her experience, her own storm, and the friends who shared it. This helps all of us to keep on the road to recovery, and to make it as beautiful as possible.

~ Kathabela​​

Sunrise in Sarangeti National Park, Tanzania (Photo – Beata Wrzal).

Marta Chociłowska

Last August I spent a couple of weeks in one of Warsaw’s hospitals. It was a beautiful, hot summer. After my surgeries, I liked to spent hours in the roof garden of the hospital. On this roof, my friend Agnieszka and I wrote together these Japanese inspired renku, called haikai no renga.

Out of time

lions disappear
and roars die away
august thunderstorm
(Marta Chociłowska)

in every raindrop on the window
billions billions suns
(Marta Chociłowska)

waiting
for the discharge home tomorrow
sunrays sunrays
(Agnieszka Umeda)

in the roof garden
swaying grass among the rocks
(Marta Chociłowska)

flirtation
the moon blinks
just for her
(Agnieszka Umeda)

thuja and berberis
spread in the pots
(Marta Chociłowska)

and at the kerb
like a tiny signpost
the thymus
(Agnieszka Umeda)

door opens
and at the threshold open arms
(Agnieszka Umeda)

purring cats
on a patterned tablecloth
young wine again
(Agnieszka Umeda)

on the white card
first shy sprouts – haiku
(Marta Chociłowska)

(Translated from Polish by Beata Wrzal)

This photo was taken at the Rooftop Garden. Olga and Marta shared a room at the hospital (Photo – Olga Chrost).

Throughout November I was going to the Oncology Institute for radiation treatment. I met so many people there, more or less sick, older and very young. One day…

The Gift

It’s late evening at the XRT ward and only two people are waiting for the radiation session. Reading a newspaper, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a patient in striped dressing gown. He shifts towards me and clearly wants to talk.
I put away my newspaper and give him my full attention. He tells me his wife’s story who had breast cancer. He says his wife is well again…but now he has lung cancer.
“The doctor thinks I have a great survival chance, but I’m not sure if I’ll make it” he tells me.
I look him straight in the eyes and say firmly “You will!”
“Do you really think so?” he asks hesitantly.
“Yes I am sure!”
When it’s my turn to be called inside the XRT bunker, I look back at him and smile.

no metastasis
autumn’s first
sunny afternoon

long cut
frees from the alien
my breast

XRT’s ward
I met true angels there
last November

long recovery . . .
I promise my bicycle
no slack this year

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Haiga by Beata Wrzal

Beata Wrzal

seasonal depression
I plan an escape
to the land of spices

charged encounter
in the ice cream container
some comfort

radiotherapy
waiting for the rainbow
after the storm

rainbow after the rain…
I allow myself
to dream again

Ο

Wild flowers at Banyan Bliss, India (Photo – Beata Wrzal).

Marta Chociłowska lives in Warsaw.  She’s a cat lover and a cyclist. Co-author of many domestic and foreign haiku anthologies, winner and judge of domestic and international haiku contests. Has publications in international haiga and haiku journals. Author of “Seasons in Polish kigo”, member of the founding committee of Polish Haiku Association, editor of the Almanac “Migratory Birds”. Participant in the Polish school of classical haiku “KUZU”. Agnieszka Umeda lives in Warsaw. She’s a Japanologist, translator interested in poetics, semantic layers and aesthetics and the ethics of space between the sender and receiver in the Japanese literary tradition. She translates Japanese poetics and prose, Chinese and Korean poetry. She collaborates with the Japanese School of KUZU and since 2007 has run the Polish school of classic haiku. Member of the founding committee of the Polish Haiku Association. Beata Wrzal lives in Hertfordshire, just outside London, and works in London as a district nurse. Her poems invoke a new day, new hope, new life after the treatment. The sunrise, the rainbow dance, dresses, river and the fresh wild flowers are a symbol of happiness, beginning of something new and beautiful.

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♣ We welcome and encourage your response especially in the form of short poems. You may reply by leaving a comment below.