End of day

End of Day
- by William Hay

The computer crashed as I closed the last file.
I believe it sensed the day end.
The dog rose to go.
I gathered papers in my tote, then my coat.
Evening light came through the window.
That witching hour evening hue.

I’m due to visit a hospital.
The day is not yet done.
There’s a  meeting later.
I miss my sweats, and tv and   couch
This suit is more foreign the older I get.
.
I didn’t want to leave home this morning.
It’s like that with long days.
So many people.So many calls.
Paper work and payments.
Writing cheques with anxiety.
It intrudes from the past when the drug addicted woman
Acted out her spite doing that new old game of victim violence.

Today I hear the sound of geese passing overhead
Hear the song  of a new season.
The smell of burning forest has gone with summer.
The red tinge around the sun has gone too.
This is a great day, a great evening.
I’m two thirds through.

The beurocratic lawyer hates me.
I carry the unbearable burden of beurocratic abuse
But smile, remembering the ‘incredible lightness of being’.
Oh to be a window washer in a communist country.

With that memory I follow the dog out.
My  friend  is waiting at the hospital.
Hospitals trigger  pain.
I cross the threshold.
I am once again where  the lies like flies once flew.

I focus on the present and my friend.
He’ll be glad to see me.
I am always welcome in hospitals
No matter how afraid I am today.
They once were different places before all this.
I strive to remember then.

My family, friends  and patients enjoy my visits.
I push the the memories of terror aside.
He needs me as I once needed him.
We've held each other up over many many years.


His face lights up. He's going to be okay.
 We laugh and remember.
The good times. Way back when.

I pray he gets well. There’s been too much death
The callousness and lies of lawyers and beurocrats crescendo,
Drama queens demand centre stage.
They push the grieving and the dying to sideliness.
All the money for medications and research has gone committee.
They Carne and Pole dance. The music is loud and techno.
Somewhere a whip snaps. Another slave takes the lash.

It’s Wednesday.
The week is halfway done.
The nightmares and sweet dreams wait to wrestle for my sleep.

I finally head home.
"It don’t matter," I remember the Vet told me, years ago
When the enemy could still be seen .
Night is fast approaching.