The Calendula Review: A Journal of Narrative Medicine published two of my poems in their Fall 2024 issue. The theme was “Inhale/Exhale.” You can read the whole journal at Http://www.thecalendulareview.com. Then look under ‘issues.’ Here are the poems:
Whale Watching
I know the black-and-white
of being alive when I hear
the explosive breach of breath:
Orcas rear
from sea-living into the glorious
necessity of air.
Breathing is a choice. Different
from the automatic heartbeat.
The winds teach us to believe
in the power of the invisible.
We point and cheer as the tour boat
idles the required distance
from the carousel pod
performing its dance
of living in two worlds.
At the rail, we don’t realize
we are holding our breath
until we let it go as they rise
again, open
the tops of their heads
in a waterfall of spectrums
before they again inhale clouds, stars,
a random feather
and dive deep, deeper, leaving us
a souvenir of air,
the moment of our collective Aaahhhh….
Looking Glass
There is life only silver can see. Aunt Sophie
had stories of accompanying a country doctor.
In those long-ago days, a nurse
carried three things in her pocket:
a thermometer, a scissors and a small, round
mirror. Once, she told me, after a difficult
birth while the doc attended to the mother,
she turned to the infant, blue and silent,
left in a basin on a window ledge.
For some reason, she slipped out her mirror,
held it under the tiny nose. Watched,
unbelieving at first, as the flat surface blurred
with the faintest hint of fog.
Immediately she pressed her thumbs against
the tiny chest. Gently parted the still lips
and whispered in her own breath
until the body found its rhythm.
To this day, as a nurse, besides my stethoscope
and blood pressure cuff. In addition
to my computer. I carry a small mirror.
At the beginning and in the final hours,
there are souls only silver sees.