Sunlight filters through the branches
As warm air following the cold
Hisses at the leaves
And mingles with the half-heard voice
Of a not-too-distant neighbor.
An occasional bird-call
Keeps time with a squirrel’s jerky progress;
A dog sighs and briefly imitates the trees.

And slowly in this tranquillity
Comes a sense of recovery
Last night’s excesses, felt viscerally
These past several hours, turn
To a contented glow in the afternoon sun.
Inner trembling starts to feel
Controlled. And less visible.

Breathing deeply, tasting at last
The warm freshness of the clean air
As it permeates, so softly, the tortured frame,
The gutted pores, the brutalised organs
Of this body.

Time now, too, for the mind, busily
Analyzing complaints for all this while,
To feel some ease
No more pumping
Frantic aid to disturbed ampullae;
No longer succouring the fevered nerves
Or fighting for a woolly lobe’s attention.
Now  comes that ease and relaxation,
Long fought for and hard won.

Now the battle is over and with minimal casualties,
Now reason takes over and forward progress
Can be seen clearly in the mind’s eye.
Now once again the saliva flows sweetly
To the abused palate.
Now the rasping throat is
Pacified.
And one succumbs to that sense of
Pastoral  anticipation
As the brain
And the spleen
And the  bile
And the liver
And, inter alia, the noble ascending colon
All agree
Now is the time
Now the blessed moment
Now
We can begin again.

Set ‘em up.