Volume 4, 2004

Hospital Haiku

Gary Weinstein

Institutional
beehive. Swarming, sunlit halls.
Someone is dying.

Linoleum gleams.
The lost, the bereaved, in halls,
await word. I watch.

Surgeons, janitors,
side by side eating. The great
democratic lunch.

Four hospitals built
adjacent; bricks, glass, healing.
Folks stream in daily.

Beepers, cell phones, chirp,
pierce. Meetings disintegrate.
All crisis all the time.

I’ve seen the great sky
Moving backwards east to west
Waves of wrinkled skin.

So much of your life
Spent in rooms, in waking sleep.
We love our buildings.

Overheard anguish;
“She just went in,“ then a pause.
“I don’t know.“ Then tears.

On the seventh floor
Their bright murals fill windows.
Children fight for life.

The last disaster;
After war, madness, anguish.
Collapse of Nature.