Hello all Bluebell Readers,
Welcome to the bot sultry days of July!
A tender topic today, one that touches us all equally at one time or another.
The subject is loss....
and giving word to it.
Todays review is about loss and beginnings, when to hold on and to let go.
Once again it is poetry that lights our way in the joy as well as the difficult.
Todays poetry is byePatrick L. Clary, MD
PaPatrick L. Clary, MD, is Board Certified in Family Practice and in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Educated at Georgetown College trick L. Clary, MD, is Board Certified in Family Practice and in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Educated at Georgetown College and later at Georgetown’s School of Medicine, his first professional training was in poetry as a student of Roland Flint.
His work has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, CoEvolution Quarterly, Patient Care, Journal of Palliative Medicine, JAMA and Journal of Medical Humanities, as well as in anthologies, literary mag, and Old Friends. A conscientious objector Fishing the oxbows of the Lamprey River
With my sons is how we can revisit my father
Closed his ashes.
from "Dying for Beginners" Lost Borders Press
Author's copyright 2006on the basis ofbeliefs, he served as a medic with US Infantry Units m 1969-7
With my sons is how we can revisit my father
Closed his ashes.
from "Dying for Beginners" Lost Borders Press
Author's copyright 2006on the basis ofbeliefs, he served as a medic with US Infantry Units m 1969-7
MEMORIAL DAY
Fishing the oxbows of the Lamprey River
With my sons is how we can revisit my father
Closer than the Bitterroot, where we
scattered his ashes.
Fishing the oxbows of the Lamprey River
With my sons is how we can revisit my father
Closer than the Bitterroot, where we
scattered his ashes.
Gabriel, himself tossed back by the
Angel of Death
Just a week ago, is no longer grateful
Simply to be able to swallow:
Angel of Death
Just a week ago, is no longer grateful
Simply to be able to swallow:
He wants the mosquitoes to stop biting
And the trout to start. Jacob catches
One freshwater mussel and two trees,
And the trout to start. Jacob catches
One freshwater mussel and two trees,
A white pine and a hemlock. He claims
Both are too small to keep.
Uncle Cookie lands a six-incher,
Both are too small to keep.
Uncle Cookie lands a six-incher,
And extracts the hook as carefully as
the surgeon
Backed the Mylar Star of David out of
Gabriel’s distal esophagus last Sunday night.
the surgeon
Backed the Mylar Star of David out of
Gabriel’s distal esophagus last Sunday night.
Cookie holds the stunned fish
upright in the water
Until it can flash from his hand like a knife.
Catch and release is the story of my life,
of all our lives:
upright in the water
Until it can flash from his hand like a knife.
Catch and release is the story of my life,
of all our lives:
But a Titleist winks up at me from
the moss-black
Granite of the river bottom, ten miles
Upstream from the nearest country club,
the moss-black
Granite of the river bottom, ten miles
Upstream from the nearest country club,
Like a jokey message from the old man
Who taught six grandsons how to fish
And how to judge a lie. He claims
Who taught six grandsons how to fish
And how to judge a lie. He claims
He’s all right after all. It wasn’t hell he smelled
As he was dying, it was my lost
brother Michael,
On the other side, firing up the grill for trout.
As he was dying, it was my lost
brother Michael,
On the other side, firing up the grill for trout.
from "Dying for Beginners" Lost Borders Press
Author's copyright 2006
Life lived in words.
That is what I like about this poem and its author.
Hope it touched you also.
Till next time,
Indie
Author's copyright 2006
Life lived in words.
That is what I like about this poem and its author.
Hope it touched you also.
Till next time,
Indie
1 comment:
excellent.
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