Our prompt was: โWrite about something forgotten and remembered.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Cicadas at the End of Summer byMartin Walls
Whine as though a pine tree is bowing a broken violin,
As though a bandsaw cleaves a thousand thin sheets of
titanium;
They chime like freight wheels on a Norfolk Southern
slowing into town.
But all you ever see is the silence.
Husks, glued to the underside of maple leaves.
With their nineteen fifties Bakelite lines they'd do
just as well hanging from the ceiling of a space
museum โ
What cicadas leave behind is a kind of crystallized memory;
The stubborn detail of, the shape around a life turned
The color of forgotten things: a cold broth of tea & milk
in the bottom of a mug.
Or skin on an old tin of varnish you have to lift with
lineman's pliers.
A fly paper that hung thirty years in Bird Cooper's pantry
in Brighton.
Credit: www.poetryfoundation.org
Our prompt was: โWrite about a question that is waiting for you.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
SOMETIMESbyDavid Whyte
Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.
Credit: themarginalian.org
Our prompt was: โBegin with: โWe floated up to the starsโฆโ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Showerby Twyla Hansen
In the middle of rolling grasslands, away from lights,
a moonless night untethers its wild polka-dots,
the formations we can name competing for attention
in a twinkling and crowded sky-bowl.
Out from the corners, our eyes detect a maverick meteor,
a transient streak, and lying back toward midnight
on the heft of car hood, all conversation blunted,
we are at once unnerved and somehow restored.
Out here, a furrow of spring-fed river threads
through ranches in the tens of thousands of acres.
Like cattle, we are powerless, by instinct can see
why early people trembled and deliberated the heavens.
Off in the distance those cattle make themselves known,
a bird song moves singular across the horizon.
Not yet 2:00, and bits of comet dust, the Perseids,
startle and skim the atmosphere like skipping stones.
In the leaden dark, we are utterly alone. As I rub the ridges
on the back of your hand, our love for all things warm
and pulsing crescendos toward dawn: this timeless awe,
your breath floating with mine upward into the stars.
Credit: Twyla Hansen, "August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower" from Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet. Copyright ยฉ 2011 by Twyla Hansen. poetryfoundation.org.
Our prompt was:ย โWrite about an eveningโreal or imagined–with fireflies.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Deep Lane [June 23rd, evening of the first fireflies]by Mark Doty
June 23rd, evening of the first fireflies,we're walking in the cemetery down the road,and I look up from my distracted study of whatever,
an unfocused gaze somewhere a few feet in front of my shoes,
and see that Ned has run on aheadwith the champagne plume of his tail held especially high,his head erect,
which is often a sign that he has something he believes he is not allowed
to have,
and in the gathering twilight (what is it that is gathered,who is doing the harvesting?) I can make out that the long horizontalbetween his lovely jaws is one of the four stakes planted on the slope
to indicate where the backhoe will dig a new grave.
Of course my impulse is to run after him, to replace the marker,out of respect for the rule that we won't desecrate the tombs,or at least for those who knew the womanwhose name inks a placard in the rectangle claimed by the four poles
of vanishingโthree poles nowโand how it's within their recollection,their gathering, she'll live. Evening of memory. Sparklamps in the grass.I stand and watch him go in his wild figure eights,I say, You run, darling, you tear up that hill.
Credit: Copyright ยฉ by Mark Doty. poets.org
Our prompt was: โWrite about something beautiful.โ
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Franz Marcโs Blue Horses by Mary Oliver
I step into the painting of the four blue horses.
I am not even surprised that I can do this.
ย
One of the horses walks toward me.
His blue nose noses me lightly. I put my arm
Over his blue mane, not holding on, just
commingling.
He allows me my pleasure.
ย
Franz Marc died a young man, shrapnel in his brain.
ย
I would rather die than try to explain to the blue horses
what war is.
They would either faint in horror, or simply
find it impossible to believe.
ย
I do not know how to thank you Franz Marc.
ย
Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually.
Maybe the desire to make something beautiful
is the piece of God that is inside each of us.
ย
Now all four horses have come closer,
are bending their faces towards me
as if they have secrets to tell.
I donโt expect them to speak, and they donโt.
If being so beautiful isnโt enough, what
could they possibly say?
Credit: On Being Studios SoundCloud
Atendieron 7 personas desde California, Nueva York, Argentina, y Espaรฑa. El texto que trabajamos fue la pintura โEl Doctor,โ de Sir Luke Fildes.
Lo que encontramos fue que entre mรกs miramos la pintura, mรกs cosas veรญamos, mรกs se nos cambiรณ la opiniรณn del cuadro. Notamos que hay un niรฑo pequeรฑo en un interior rรบstico acostado sobre dos sillas, su rostro pรกlido iluminado por la lรกmpara de vidrio en la mesa. El mรฉdico, vestido con un traje a medida, se sienta al lado de la cama improvisada mirando a su paciente ansiosamente. El padre del niรฑo, de pie en el fondo con la mano sobre el hombro de su esposa cuyas manos estรกn apretadas como en oraciรณn, mira hacia la cara grave del mรฉdico. Su humilde estilo de vida es evidente en la peltre, el trozo de alfombra en el suelo de piedra, y su ropa rasgada. El alcance de la enfermedad del joven se puede ver en la botella de medicamento medio vacรญa en la mesa, y el tazรณn y la jarra, utilizados para aliviar la temperatura del niรฑo, en el banco. Los trozos de papel en el suelo podrรญan ser recetas hechas por el mรฉdico para la medicina ya tomado. La madre esconde su rostro para escapar, para rezar y rogar, dando rienda suelta a su emociรณn, el padre pone la mano sobre el hombro de su esposa en aliento.
Alguien noto que si hubiera un sonido en esa habitaciรณn pudiera ser el silencio o el sollozo de la madre. Aun otra persona menciono que el silencio es mรบsica. En mรบsica silencio es un elemento fundamental.
El mรฉdico aquรญ tambiรฉn es vulnerableโรฉl no sabe si puede salvarle la vida al niรฑo. Nos deja esa incertidumbre. Fildes le puso mรกs luz al mรฉdico y al niรฑo y mรกs sombra sobre los padres, poniendo el enfoque en la relaciรณn entre el mรฉdico y el paciente. Un participante mencionรณ que lo lindo de esta pintura es que demuestra los logros que se pueden obtener cuando hay humildad de parte del mรฉdico. Aquรญ vemos que el mรฉdico fue a la casa y se quedรณ toda la noche con el paciente y los padres, cuidando al paciente.
Alguien pregunto, โยฟQuiรฉn sostiene este niรฑo?โ y se contestรณ que las sillas, pero en verdad son los padres que estรกn en el fondo. Al frente esta la ciencia y al fondo la humanidad (los ruegos y la fe). Las sombras son lo que sostienes todo lo que se da. รl te o cafรฉ que le prepararon al mรฉdico muestra una atenciรณn que le muestran de gracias.
En este cuadro demuestra un plano de igualdad en la humanidad. Asumimos muchas cosas, la historia evoluciona. Por eso serรก que esta pintura es tan famosa.
La propuesta de escritura fue โEscribe sobre una sala/habitaciรณn de cuidadoโ. Los participantes escribieron sobre la relaciรณn de todo lo que se encuentra en la habitaciรณn del paciente y ahรญ es donde nace la enfermedad. Se continuo el tema del mรฉdico siendo mรกs relacionado con la ciencia y el paciente con la humanidad. La pintura evoco escritura del dolor de perder a un niรฑo al igual un hermano. Y que todos los cuartos son salas de habitaciรณn de cuidado. Y se mencionรณ que mientras uno crea la relaciรณn entre el mรฉdico y el paciente, hasta el nombre que se dicen รฉl una al otro se cambia, se pone mรกs familiarizado.
Aquรญ, ahora alentamos a los participantes que si asรญ lo desean, compartan lo que escribieron a continuaciรณn. Deja tu respuesta aquรญ, si deseas continuar la conversaciรณn. Pero antes, les recomendamos tener en cuenta que el blog es un espacio pรบblico donde, por supuesto, no se garantiza la confidencialidad.
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Connections in Narrative Medicine 