Sitting quietly in high Summer
While the river flows
Is peaceful, for an hour;
But any longer, and we who wish
Cannot wait to abstain:
We must be gone or find a goal
To satisfy such haste.
 

There was a man, dying from his age
As his flesh and organs failed:
He did not seem to mind this
        I've had a good innings
Except, sometimes, the pain.
He would lay, slowing breathing
And sometimes smiling in his bed
While we who waited on the living
And the dying
Cared
As our time, tiredness and allocations
Allowed.

Every two hours, on the Ward, still living bodies
Would be turned
To remove just one more soiled sheet
While the heat of Summer through half-open
Windows
Mingled with the smells
And the oozing from freshly sutured
Flesh:

But each dark moment was almost always
(If you watched)
Relieved
By the sadness or the smile
In another person's eyes.
 

DW Myatt