tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7491665605856687498.post5108230554101809..comments2023-08-03T03:04:00.350-07:00Comments on Bryan Ray: My week’s ordealUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7491665605856687498.post-52979871153528914902016-03-02T07:25:11.966-08:002016-03-02T07:25:11.966-08:00Ah thanks for your concern and encouragement!!—swe...Ah thanks for your concern and encouragement!!—sweetheart is already much better: she got her stitches removed one day ago, and she's back to teaching music lessons… so we're relieved… & I really appreciate your perspective on the medical staff—it bolsters me! My tendency is to idolize docs and nurses, but then I remember those words of Whitman (from §5 of <i>Song of Myself</i>), about the body and the soul, which remind me of the arts of medicine versus poetry:<br /><br /><i>I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, <br />And you must not be abased to the other.</i><br /><br />…Also, what the poet says in §41 about the various gods, I try to apply (not out of disdain, but to remind myself that we writers have our place in the world as well) to the good people at the E.R. <br /><br /><i>Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,<br />Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days…</i><br /><br />…One last thing I recall (sorry to go on and on about Whitman's poem, but I happened to be reading it again this morning!) is that Walt himself worked as a nurse throughout the the horrid conditions of the U.S. civil war; and the last section quoted above begins with with a passage that brings both that fact AND my own recent personal misgivings to mind:<br /><br /><i>I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs,<br />And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help.</i>Bryan Rayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11804120781497712479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7491665605856687498.post-24403461144058293792016-02-29T09:51:59.463-08:002016-02-29T09:51:59.463-08:00Ouch! Gute Besserung to your sweetheart!
And you, ...Ouch! Gute Besserung to your sweetheart!<br />And you, keep on shuffling those words around - it's when they fall into place that the nurses and doctors pass on all that useful stuff to their successors, probably.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com