sick

http://www.lnstar.com/mall/literature/rls/LandofCounterpane.htm   I've been sick in bed all day and night. I coughed most of last night and a lot of today. I've been trying to think of this poem and it finally came to me and I found it right off through google. I have it downstairs or up here maybe. But I seem to have lost contact with the world outside this room, even this bed. Now I can take the computer to bed as well as books. And of course at least one cat in bed with me most of the time. I could live like this for days. Somebody would finally bring me something to eat. When I was little and sick in bed, Mama or Daddy would read to me, actually I was read to every day and night. I don't remember a life without stories. Tonight I'm not sure if I'm living in a story or this is real life. The book I read today has corrupted my brain. Somehow I like it corrupted, closed in this little room. Yet the world at my computer screen. During the daylight hours I could see the birds and squirrels eating. I guess the squirrels sleep in the red building. I see them go in there, they know the food is there when I don't keep it replenished in the feeders. I've left all the wrappings there, woodpecker snack, berry punch suet, black oil sunflower seeds. If I don't gather them for the trash it will be record of what they ate this winter. Or spring winds will scatter them all over the yard. Bits and pieces will catch in the weeds in the herb beds. I haven't touched them for two years. So the herbs and wild flowers are under there if I want to find them. But then I would have to leave this room. From here I can pretend to see the herbs and never know the difference. Does it really matter?