THE PATIENT ANSWERS
“We learn the social map / fast. Beneath the ordinary chat, / jokes, kindnesses, we’re scavengers, / gnawing at each other’s histories / for scraps of hope.”
From “Knowing Our Place” by Carole Satyamurti
House Officer, “Tell me, what is the pain like?”
Yes, I will tell you, I will tell
you, I will paint it, sometimes
it is a black hole
in the canvas of a midnight
sky, sometimes a fresh carpet
of snow unmarked by animal
tracks. Sometimes an abstract
explosion of Mesopotamia colours,
cubist images of fallen soldiers,
poisoned oases, in the war-torn
canvas of my desert heart!
Oncologist, “The primary is in the lung. The secondaries are in the liver.”
But the pain is the greater
cancer, it spreads not into adjacent
organs but metastasizes by jumping
across chasms, from body to mind,
the secondaries in the psyche
causing the greater distress.
Nursing Sister, “Good night!”
What’s so good when the silence
at night is a gramophone loudspeaking
my pains, its slow hours the needle
stuck in the groove of my long-
playing record?
Visitor,”Here’s an Agatha Christie, to keep you occupied…”
But I’m occupied, counting
my pain. Every unit of pain
is the many digits of fresh
pain multiplied by the power
of the remembered pains.
The numerator of its waxing
is an astronomy number.
The denominator of its waning
is the logarithm of morphine.
Church member, “God does hear your cries of pain..”
Do you not hear them too?
The sigh of a hospital-pale
bouquet as it sheds tears
of petals. The high strung
weeping of morphine as it travels
a plastic route from bottle
to body. The sobbing of the cardiac
monitor as the screen numbers
the minutes of a fluttering
heart. The groans of the trolley
wheeling in the many last
suppers……………………………
Pastor, “I will pray for you, God will surely heal…”
I wish you could submerge
me in the disturbed waters
of the pool at Bethesda,
prove God true or that even
an erect man can drown
when the water is an inch
of platitudes…….
.
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21 comments:
This is for Don,Paula (Wingtips),Minerva and for my family:Cheryl-Lyn, Andy, Naomi, Andrea, Kay, Abigail, Jay (& Yen Mei),Sylvia...Yes, I am "Poet" first and then Physician, medicine is how I make a living but poetry is how I live...(oops ,sounds like a cliche!!!! Pardon!)
What a brilliant piece! It is like the beautiful collage of Coleuses.
Though all of the on lookers see and speak of pain as one thing, the patient has experienced its every dimension and has found it to have consummed life itself.
This is an amazing piece!
Wonderful! Really a neat one! I am the same...I make a living running a small company, but poetry is also how I live. Thank you.
Thanks, Don, did you notice that this was for YOU (well at least your name was first!)You are so kind Queen...will select one just for you, perhaps one unpublished poem that I have been keeping in a file in the closet!
Plus Ultra...in gratitude I bow in kind thanksgiving.
Lovely. What a wonderful heart you have. May the world be filled with doctors and poets who feel so much for life. Thank you.
PS: Kindness is just the first step toward compassionate wisdom.
With blessings,
Don
I had a dream last night of a woman drowning in the Dead Sea. It was so vivid. For some reason, this poem brings that dream to mind.
evocative piece
A hauntingly poetic and tragic vision. Tenderly phrased without pretension or pause. Great stuff.
Some glitch in the blog, I see so many comments (!!)in my mail... but unable to publish as yet, thanks all your lovely people, perhaps I need to stick to writing poetry from a doctor's point of view!!!Thanks, Don.
Aurora, A poem is the dream of a dream, I actually have a poem on that....will post it some day and dedicate it to you. And I was just toying with the imagery of some "Dead Sea Scrolls" but nothing came out of it...guess it must have gone over the winds to you!
Dear Plus/Dr Ultra,have been reading this poem over 2-3 days, don't have words to describe its beauty.Though a thought kept coming to me..a long one
I always wanted to be a journalist/writer ended up an engineer.I am only 23 but felt lost and was full of regret.But lately I feel my Engineering added a new dimension to me.
I feel so more strongly with you as an example, if you weren't a doctor you could have never written this poem.I am sure many of your patients have healed with your poetic touch through your medicines.
NB:I am sorry I got a bit carried away :-)
Plus, I have seen this pain and you have captured it perfectly to the horrible reality of it's victim. Excellent poem!!
I love this, especially how each remark the various characters make is so brief. Each cuts right to it, no wasted words, no long explanation necessary--just "Here's an Agatha Christie, to keep you occupied..."
And yes, you can link! Thank you. (I actually don't know how to do that myself.)
I enjoyed all the perspectives of this. Comassion makes your eye good - poetry makes compassion more than sympathy, something that heals us where we didn't realize we were in pain. This set of poems lets us be the butterfly quietly standing where the dragon has raged.
Thanks everybody...yes dd, being a doctor does help me write " better" poetry...poetry with heart, perhaps even poetry that heals, helping me sometimes to cope with all the pains of life and living........................
This is overwhelming. The focus on pain covers the reader and all else is submerged. Is this what it is like working in a hospital? How do doctors cope if they feel the pain so strongly?
this is a wonderful piece, so powerful and evocative.
thank you.
This is perfectly crafted -- beautiful work, my brother.
Thanks, Christine...doctors turn to Poetry!!!! Well, at least this is What I do, I am reminded always of the poem by Rainer Maria Rilke entitled, "Say. poet, what it is you do".."Say, poet, what it is you do.-I praise. / How can you look into the monster's gaze / And accept what has death in it?-I praise. " Not the exact words but a translation of the original by Clive Wilmer.
hi plus ultra.
just dropping by to say hello!
i must say you have an interesting blog here.
the pictures are very lovely. and this poem is great, brings out the moods of the patient very nicely.
I do not want to think of my Mother going through this......this is so well written it makes a person weak.
Mom has had cancer five times. Breast in 1964,surgery, chemo, a lump near her jaw in the 80, surgery, stomach cancer in the 90's along with a diagnosis of Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Radiation, Chemo, and NOW just this month she has a rare blood cancer. She has said no more dr.'s no more chemo, no more nothing, she will just gradually get to weak to do anything and die. Without blood transfusions she will last about six months. That was last month. I don't know if there will be pain? And i don't know if she knows either. Can there be cancer without pain?
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