Daniel McNeela School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics 2014 Poem Existence is meant to burn in structured candescence, the lighting of a candle, hot melting of wax. This extolled by man who thought, in all his vainglory, to make structured time by casting it in the accruable tick—…
All posts tagged poem
An Ode to Francis Collins
Chris Unterberger School of Pharmacy 2021 Poem Longtime NIH director, Francis Collins, announced his resignation of the post last week. For the past twelve years, Dr. Collins has served as the head of the most important health institution in the nation while guiding the country’s scientific research under three presidents. Before becoming director of…
Lung Song
Dana Maya School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Surgery 2021 Poem 1. You saw it too: a man strangled, his last breath taken. That summer the sickness that stole breaths came, the streets were in flames, our lungs filled with shouts that felt like fire, the forests filled with smoke that summer,…
Voiceless
Nithin Charlly School of Medicine and Public Health 2021 Poem Coughing through the night As if he were a dog barking Lips pursed, clubbed nails, cachexic His pack of cigarettes lit nearby Providing just enough warmth From the cool evening To make this nightly routine worth it I asked them Is Uncle Rohan okay?…
Pajama time/Pandemic time
Liana Eskola, DO School of Medicine and Public Health 2021 Poem Rita Charon, the godmother of narrative medicine, knows words and patients. She knows doctors too–what we give, what we lose, what we need. How we cry. How we hush our own beating hearts. She knows about pajama time, and all the…
Limericks Welcoming a Pandemic’s Last Breaths
Samantha Herndon School of Medicine and Public Health, Collaborative for Reproductive Equity 2021 Poem 1. Waiting to enter the waiting room Springtime hyacinths reluctant to bloom A jab in my arm Or else the funny farm For me it’s vaccine or waxing poetic on doom. 2. Layer on layer of smile-covering cloth Disinfecting, high-grossing,…
Cages
Sheri Johnson School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Medicine 2020 Poem Foil blankets lay bare All our woundedness and fear Rest, weary ones, rest.
A world on fire
Ariel Niforatos School of Medicine and Public Health 2020 Poem Sometimes I hear the sky speak in low cadences and agitated whispers continuous musings of a world much older than we are It tells me of the Beginning when the first bud of life took in its first breath And it tells me of…
Seek
Nasia Safdar, MD, PhD School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Medicine 2020 Poem There is in each of us, a yearning For respect Earn it you say? To the mother To the homemaker To the invisible overtime worker A throw-away remark Or perhaps a carefully thought out remark Shreds Right down to…
Restless
Toby Campbell, MD, MSCI School of Medicine and Public Health 2020 Poem Living, like I am, Where nothing is simple and nothing is normal. Dying, like I am, In slow motion. Here, in death’s shadow, every minute matters. The mundane and the vital feel too much the same: A bath and a podcast and a…