Riffling through my files the other day, I came across a poem I wrote, over 40 years ago, when I spent nearly a week in an English hospital with pneumonia. Since I recently returned home after a two day stay in hospital to have my knee replaced, here in Canada, I couldn’t help but reflect on the differences and similarities of those experiences.

All those years ago, I was reading Victorian poetry and became interested in the work of W. E. Henley. His most innovative series of poems was “In Hospital”, inspired by a stay of three years in the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. He had contracted tuberculosis in the bones of his leg and was still an adolescent when he had to have one of his legs amputated. Later his other leg was at risk but a determined fight to save it conducted by the famous surgeon, Sir Joseph…