Publication
Article
Psychiatric Times
A Lobsterman Looks at the Sea
Author(s):
His new hip healed in, we’re working on a bluff, talking doctors and health care reform as we shove a new propane tank into place...
His new hip healed in, we’re working
on a bluff, talking doctors and health care
reform as we shove a new propane tank into place.
A shape on the surface catches his eye:
“Right whale” he says, but I can only see
endless swells rolling in from the east.
He points out the gradations of gray
and green that mark deep ledge, the tide’s
shape along the islands and rocks,
the whale’s glistening back suddenly in focus.
And I react with the same surprise
my patients feel when I observe
what they can’t see-
a sudden shift in gaze, or a crease in a cheek,
and I understand how a doctor becomes
like a man who has spent sixty years
on a lobster boat, watching the world
swim fast and shining, right before his eyes.
This poem received a “Commended” award for The Hippocrates Prize for poetry, an international award for poetry on a medical subject, 2012.
