It is the day before Thanksgiving and it seems everyone is out picking up last minute items. People are everywhere and the traffic is crazy as impatient horns blare.

I reach into my pocket and her list, hand written in pencil, is crumpled around my keys. I fish it out, smoothing it as I squint to read :-

Red peppers
Green peppers
Ginger
Onions
Scallions
Garlick
Greatnut ice cream
Bizzy

Bizzy, she makes tea from this. “Good for the knees”, she says while rubbing it. I still have trouble figuring out which of her home remedies are mostly old wives tales. That matters not, though. It’s what she gets from it. I suspect they have more to do with her refusing to just give up. Or, to leave her fate in the hands of another.

Arthritis is taking its toll. That right knee is markedly larger than the left. So it can’t be comfortable. And she has given up on doctors. “They’re not doing anything for me, they’re just rifling through my insurance”, she complains. And soldiers on.

At age 87, she is still a warrior!

sparrows in a ruckus
above the roar of traffic –
how’s this possible?
I pause – from atop street light
an unlikely burst of nature

Pat R
11/29/19

A Tanka haibun having to do with giving thanks for things great and small. For Tanka Tuesday over at Colleen’s, also over at Frank Tassone’s Poetry Challenge where the prompt is Thanksgiving.