CMAJ • November 10, 2009; 181 (10). doi:10.1503/cmaj.091789.
© 2009 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association.
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Humanities

Poetry

Sons and mothers

Larry Reynolds, MD

Professor, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man.

Little Ali falls from his tree
Hard grounded by Sir Isaac’s gravity.
His Afghan mother bears him to Grace Emergency.
Slender arm greensticked
Split his ripe cherry lip
Nose bloodied, his lashes tear dipped.
English makes him old, her young
She who was once the harness maker’s most beautiful daughter
Now greyed by worry and by war.
Lip stitched, face washed, arm in a plaster sleeve
Mother and son, hand in hand, hand in sling
Take their leave.

That Kandahar day
Zach Barkman is blown from life’s tree
He of Patricia’s own Canadian Infantry
She who was once granddaughter to an Empress Queen
But all our Queen’s medics and all our Queen’s men
Can not bring Barkman to life again.
Nor can all the acred lowland poppies
Nor a single highland piper
Make the pain go.
On the low road to Shilo
Of his fathers love begotten
Baby Barkman rocks, anchored to his corded roots
He can not hold his mother’s hand, yet
Hercules will gently bear the fallen father home
Under a blood red leaf.
And ancient Eden’s apple tree
Is lifted up again.


Figure 117
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