The quality of mercy
Apropos of nothing at all, I was idling through the hundreds of poems I've written and stowed away unread over these many years when I came across this one. At age 63 I'd suffered a sudden, exquisite pain in the abdomen region and had, for the first time in my life, to be rushed into a Winchester hospital.
The 'she who had no need to care' was the young doctor who spotted yellowing of face and promoted me in the queue to emergency status. This was for her ...
Thoughts from Twyford Ward at Christmas When you are told, undress, it's just as if, Unprotesting you are taking off your self; Abed you soon become that bed, your clothes,Your self together folded on the shelf;You think at first that hospitals are blindTo 'ought but sickness, know you just from charts That hang upon the footrail of your bed,You're just the sum of your defective parts,And yet compassion is a river deep That under-runs the vastness of this place, I instance she who had no need to careWhose caring vastly aided my repair.
Christmas watching David Copperfield In this my only hospital (so far!)With time and space enough to yield to Dickens' tale and the progress of my starAbove the sixty three high Christmas tides,Whose flows and ebbs way-mark my life:Is it my sense of cosy helplessnessOr Davey's in the end successful strifeThat spurs my deepest thoughts and questions?Or festive signs that sparkle everywhereHere in this warm retreat from cold realityWhere sometime pain's the only penalty?
Or the unsmiling ancient over thereFor whom the bright-lit glory of this worldHas long since darkened, shrunk inside to shareThe bony cage, the pain-wracked bounds of self Alone, most trace of grace now gone and nowWho pleads to be let home for Christmas DayAnd gives his faltering word, his heart-felt vow He would return that eve, come yet what may…Might I have seen my Christmas future thereIn breathless rattling chest, bent form, not leastOf the indignities great age can bringTo those who to a kind of living cling?
Or the tableau played between the oldSicilian and the smart young nurse who needs Through kindly firmness to impose her will And not accept her rebel patient's leads,He with his 'bloody 'ells', his loud guffawsAnd she with sternly issued reprimandsIn words he does not wish to comprehend'Til she can do no more than raise her hands,Give in and shake her shining soft black hair And grin - now see how keenly those old eyesLook for that spark that lives within a smileAnd which can still the stuff of life ignite In an exhausted frame, a care-worn browEnclosing sleeping memories, woken now…
…That laughing girl with basket on brown arm…Bright curls her head-scarf failed to tie withinHot growing earth smell of that hillside's warmEmbrace, soft touch of her sweat-beaded skin,The bold sun-colours of that olive grove When he, somebody, was a man of pride, His lifted heart so strong, so bound in loveThat what he wished to take was not denied And he had made a present of himself,Of moon and stars to such a one as this…
But most is peaceful here on earth tonightAs I and my thrombotic new-found pal Range in our conversation left and rightLike why are there no sick wild animalsJust healthy ones and those that soon by dintOf age or violence careful nature culls:And have we maybe just lost sight of whyMan must at all costs nature over-ruleNo longer seeking reason nor for rhyme?This day it seems that living counts the leastAnd pride and purpose are what count the mostTo this we raise our glasses, drink our toast.
Oh silent night of good king WenceslasNow hark the herald angels sing out loudAs here in Twyford Ward the choir en masseDelivers Christmas carols, cheerful crowd,To patients come in fear, in helpless search Of help, distressed, and of an end to pain -And hope, as they who issue from the church, To go in thoughtfulness as born again;And maybe nurse and doctor, orderly Attending to the sick this Christmas dayAre closest to that Christ-child's glad re-birth;To glory in the highest, peace on earth.
Bryan IslipChristmas 97
The 'she who had no need to care' was the young doctor who spotted yellowing of face and promoted me in the queue to emergency status. This was for her ...
Thoughts from Twyford Ward at Christmas When you are told, undress, it's just as if, Unprotesting you are taking off your self; Abed you soon become that bed, your clothes,Your self together folded on the shelf;You think at first that hospitals are blindTo 'ought but sickness, know you just from charts That hang upon the footrail of your bed,You're just the sum of your defective parts,And yet compassion is a river deep That under-runs the vastness of this place, I instance she who had no need to careWhose caring vastly aided my repair.
Christmas watching David Copperfield In this my only hospital (so far!)With time and space enough to yield to Dickens' tale and the progress of my starAbove the sixty three high Christmas tides,Whose flows and ebbs way-mark my life:Is it my sense of cosy helplessnessOr Davey's in the end successful strifeThat spurs my deepest thoughts and questions?Or festive signs that sparkle everywhereHere in this warm retreat from cold realityWhere sometime pain's the only penalty?
Or the unsmiling ancient over thereFor whom the bright-lit glory of this worldHas long since darkened, shrunk inside to shareThe bony cage, the pain-wracked bounds of self Alone, most trace of grace now gone and nowWho pleads to be let home for Christmas DayAnd gives his faltering word, his heart-felt vow He would return that eve, come yet what may…Might I have seen my Christmas future thereIn breathless rattling chest, bent form, not leastOf the indignities great age can bringTo those who to a kind of living cling?
Or the tableau played between the oldSicilian and the smart young nurse who needs Through kindly firmness to impose her will And not accept her rebel patient's leads,He with his 'bloody 'ells', his loud guffawsAnd she with sternly issued reprimandsIn words he does not wish to comprehend'Til she can do no more than raise her hands,Give in and shake her shining soft black hair And grin - now see how keenly those old eyesLook for that spark that lives within a smileAnd which can still the stuff of life ignite In an exhausted frame, a care-worn browEnclosing sleeping memories, woken now…
…That laughing girl with basket on brown arm…Bright curls her head-scarf failed to tie withinHot growing earth smell of that hillside's warmEmbrace, soft touch of her sweat-beaded skin,The bold sun-colours of that olive grove When he, somebody, was a man of pride, His lifted heart so strong, so bound in loveThat what he wished to take was not denied And he had made a present of himself,Of moon and stars to such a one as this…
But most is peaceful here on earth tonightAs I and my thrombotic new-found pal Range in our conversation left and rightLike why are there no sick wild animalsJust healthy ones and those that soon by dintOf age or violence careful nature culls:And have we maybe just lost sight of whyMan must at all costs nature over-ruleNo longer seeking reason nor for rhyme?This day it seems that living counts the leastAnd pride and purpose are what count the mostTo this we raise our glasses, drink our toast.
Oh silent night of good king WenceslasNow hark the herald angels sing out loudAs here in Twyford Ward the choir en masseDelivers Christmas carols, cheerful crowd,To patients come in fear, in helpless search Of help, distressed, and of an end to pain -And hope, as they who issue from the church, To go in thoughtfulness as born again;And maybe nurse and doctor, orderly Attending to the sick this Christmas dayAre closest to that Christ-child's glad re-birth;To glory in the highest, peace on earth.
Bryan IslipChristmas 97
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