{"id":2967,"date":"2024-04-24T15:30:17","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T15:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/?p=2967"},"modified":"2024-09-04T21:11:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T21:11:20","slug":"seat-of-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/seat-of-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"Seat of darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan McAdams, MD<\/em>
\nSchool of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Pediatrics<\/em>
\n2024<\/em>
\nPoem<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whispers in the wind led me to lonely land
\nwhere once stood my family tree
\nits Irish roots drank spirits
\nuntil a cruel keen blade\u2014sharp with
\nwrath, jealousy and greed\u2014
\nsplit the trunk in two.<\/p>\n

Gnarled branches fell, oak and ash
\nscattered on unplowed farmland and
\nhidden lake cabins.<\/p>\n

My grandfather, a staunch union man
\nwith tarnished gold eyes, toiled as a tire worker,
\nsteering his red Ford through the dusk,
\na thrifty soul with calloused hands,
\nhe knew woods and waters;
\nhunted, fished, and nursed a hidden flask.<\/p>\n

Belt cracking obedience kept the boys
\nstraight. Buzz cut and handsome
\nthey followed the liquid path.
\nChained Prometheus, pecked at the wheel
\nand the red-haired Vietnam vet dialyzed to the grave.<\/p>\n

Now, as a doctor trained to heal
\nmy own buried wounds open
\nat the strangest times\u2014
\nchildhood memories surface
\nas I peer microscopically at the cells
\nof a cirrhotic man,
\nstumbling under a cover slip.<\/p>\n

I sympathize with the spur cell\u2014<\/p>\n

Protoplasmic porcupine
\n   donning spiculated spines,
\n      you traverse the crimson tide
\n        like a stiff octopus,
\n          navigating seas
\n  of round red cells
\n      floating like balloons<\/p>\n

            Far away from you,
\n                fearing a sudden stop,
\n                        they may pop.<\/p>\n

As the spur cell drifts, detached,
\nwithin its vitreous realm,
\nmemories of kin float adrift
\nlost in an estuary of exile.<\/p>\n

No matter how I adjust the lens, the image blurs\u2014
\nfragmented dinner table stories,
\nthe aroma of fried fish and pheasant,
\nechoes of both laughter and lament.<\/p>\n

Unlike the liver’s power to regenerate,
\nmy childhood relatives are lost,
\nscattered like spur cells, astray
\nacross a vast crimson solitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan McAdams, MD School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Pediatrics 2024 Poem   Whispers in the wind led me to lonely land where once stood my family tree its Irish roots drank spirits until a cruel keen blade\u2014sharp with wrath, jealousy and greed\u2014 split the trunk in two. Gnarled branches fell, oak and… <\/p>\n

Read <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,10],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-2967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2024-issue","category-writing","tag-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2967"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3065,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions\/3065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}