Common Cold, Ogden Nash
Poison Ivy, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind, Emily Dickinson
Thoracic Surgery, Mark Nepo
If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking, Emily Dickinson
The Wound Dresser, Walt Whitman (excerpts)
The Physician, Cole Porter
My First Day Well, Emily Dickinson
Surviving Has Made Me Crazy, Mark Nepo
Invictus, William Henley
Misha Berach prayer (Jewish traditional)
* * *
The Germ, Odgen Nash
The Microscope, Maxine Kumin
Hospital, Patrick Kavanaugh
Riddle: Post Op, Alicia Suskin Ostriker
The Land of Counterpane, Robert Louis Stevenson
Sick, Shel Silverstein
Double double toil and trouble,” from Macbeth, William Shakespeare
Love Potion #9, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Long Life, Elaine Feinstein
Witch Doctor, Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.
‘Dem Bones, Spiritual
Avinu Malkeinu: A Prayer of Protest (author unknown)
Bodhisattva Vow
The Dying Doctor, Woody Guthrie
…..Waiting Again for Biopsy Results from
the Second Floor Exercise Room, Jennifer Franklin
To Ramona, Bob Dylan
Common Cold
by Ogden Nash
You should get the text from another source.
Poison Ivy
By Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
You should get the text from another source.
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
by Emily Dickinson
I felt a Cleaving in my Mind –
As if my Bran had split –
I tried to match it – Seam by Seam –
But could not make them fit
The thought behind, I strove to join
Unto the thought before
But Sequence raveled out of Sound –
Like Balls upon a Floor –
Thoracic Surgery
by Mark Nepo
You should get the text from another source.
If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking
by Emily Dickinson
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life of aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
The Wound-Dresser (excerpts)
By Walt Whitman
An old man bending I come among new faces . . . .
Of unsurpass’d heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)
Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,
Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains? . . . . .
Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,
Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground,
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof’d hospital,
To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,
To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,
An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,
Soon to be fill’d with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill’d again.
I onward go, I stop,
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,
One turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you . . . .
Thus in silence in dreams’ projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,
(Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested,
Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips.) . . . .
I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive,
While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail . . . .
The fractur’d thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,
These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.) . . . .
I am faithful, I do not give out . . . .
The Physician
by Cole Porter
You should get the text from another source.
My First Day Well
by Emily Dickinson
My first well Day–since many ill—
I asked to go abroad,
And take the Sunshine in my hands,
And see the things in Pod—
A ‘blossom just when I went in
To take my Chance with pain—
Uncertain if myself, or He,
Should prove the strongest One.
The Summer deepened, while we strove—
She put some flowers away—
And Redder cheeked Ones—in their stead—
A fond—illusive way—
She dealt a fashion to the Nut—
She tied the Hoods to Seeds—
She dropped bright scraps of Tint, about—
And left Brazilian Threads
On every shoulder that she met—
Then both her Hands of Haze
Put up—to hide her parting Grace
From our unfitted eyes.
My loss, by sickness—Was it Loss?
Or that Ethereal Gain
One earns by measuring the Grave—
Then—measuring the Sun—
Surviving Has Made Me Crazy
by Mark Nepo
You should get the text from another source.
Invictus
by William Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Misheberach – May The One Who Blessed
(traditional)
May The One who blessed our ancestors,
bless and heal those who are ill [names]
Bless us with the power of healing
Bless us with the power of hope
May our hearts be filled with understanding
And strengthened by the power of love.
Bless those in need of healing with
the renewal of body,
the renewal of spirit,
And may we find the
courage to make our
lives a blessing
And let us say,
Amen.