Poem for Christmas Service

There's blood on the straw
on my face
on His hair,
my legs won't stop shaking
my belly is an empty wineskin
and pain blurs all the faces
except one.

He lies at my breast
looking at me,
so tiny, so immaculate, so real.
His wide clear eyes fix on mine
and I see eternity.

My heart is full of joy and triumph;
the women cry "a son, a son!"
as if I hadn't always known.
And I long to call Him mine
and I long to say "I made Him,"
but the shadow of Another holds me back.

The little face crumples;
His first cry
melts my heart to milk.
When I said "I am the Lord's servant,"
I thought that with this birth
my task would be complete

...now I realise it's only just begun.

Nocturnal Medidroid

the lonely robot
walks down the endless
dirty-green corridor
and dreams
in her robot subconscious
of the time when she was a girl
with a home and a husband and friends
instead of a nest, an alarm clock
and a hole in her heart.

No!
I have no heart
until I can be a girl again.

if i can

It's been another one of those days. Those days when I go through the whole of my time at work without once remembering my true motivations for actually being there. (I'm being very honest with myself here). I seem to spend so much of my time working for my pay-cheque, for my career, for the goal of going part-time, to get the nurses or the managers or the patient's family off my back, for the prestige of being a doctor, to impress my consultant or help my colleagues, to learn, or on my worst days, just to get to the end of the day.

In fact, none of these reasons are enough to do the job I do. My primary reasons for working are - corny as it sounds - to help people who are ill, and to work to the best of my ability to give glory to God. The moments that I love my job are the ones when I suddenly feel that I am really connecting with a patient, whether that's because somehow the advice or medication or treatment that I am giving is helping, or, more often, because they feel someone is listening and understanding their pain.

On days when I am in danger of forgetting all about the real reason I am there because I am bogged down with all the other rubbish that comes with working in the NHS, sometimes this poem helps me.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson

Ok, so maybe the end is more appropriate for an RSPB worker, but the rest of it fits for me. I hope maybe it helps you too.

Drawers

I have sorted through
rose scented talcum powder,
bandages and pearls,
ballroom dancing shoes,
knitting needles,
photos of a pale faced child (me)
and a wooden musical box.

Don't let me have to sort through
fountain pens and assorted nails,
a model knight on horseback,
disposable razors,
botanical linament for joints,
cut out articles on animal rights,
and a leather case with folding coathangers,
At least, not too soon.

nonsense

want to escape
into the blue
out of the hurly
and hullabaloo

away from the ceaseless
kerfuffle and blare;
the bustle and burly
and tearing of hair

want to be idle
want to be free
to leisurely languidly
lie by the sea

with nothing to do
for a year and a day
oh why can't my dreaming
vacate me away?