The Hospital Emergency Room, a poem by Peter Menkin (2000)
Here is my consideration of a brief poem of waiting in a hospital emergency room.
Poem by Peter Menkin (2000)
The man from the Veteran's Hospital
was late, and the baby cried happily.
Two children wore the doctor's bandages
in the waiting room. Earlier at evening tide
there was a quiet conference in the
education center. The man who tip toes
through the tulips was pulling his car to
the main door of Marin General when I
arrived. The beep, the bio feedback, the
numbers 106 over, 95 over, oxygen 96.
The heart is monitored by machines, the
ticking clock sweeps from the hours through
Evening Prayer, and the long explanation of
conversation with God in a description begins.
Our Father, who, art in Heaven where the Lord
lives. Hallowed is a joy to us in song and in the
Majesty of golden walls. Be thy name, a mystery
unspeakable, a land and a place oh joy of hymn.
Thy kingdom, a tree where we abide and sing,
along the branches like those whose life is tended,
as the lily is beautiful so we are without anxiety in
your Kingdom where there is clothing that we neither
work nor labor and Come. Thy will, your will be done.
Me in thee and thee in me. On earth as it is in heaven,
the cherubim and the archangels sing a constant hymn
of song in worship and adoration in this holy spirit that
yours is. Give us this day, to begin and say this is the
day the lord has made, let us
be glad in it. our daily bread to eat as a manna from
heaven a promise of which we are not worthy, oh, I
have denied thee, and loved thee, for you are a rest
to me and a comfort. Forgive us as we ask this of you
in your grace of giving this question to us this evening
the hour turns towards nine o'clock and the doctor is
waiting the nurses are coming. I am thirsty, and listening
now in another room. As we forgive those who trespass
against, for this is a prayer against another, in the wrestling
that is our lives, in struggle and in toil, my heart beats,
breath and practice bio feedback.
Us, whom we think about. The us of the hospital, the patients,
the nurses, the paramedics who are in their blue uniforms.
Cool and so well waiting. Someone has died. I sense it,
for I practice discernment, Oh Lord of my life, my love in
testimony, I seek thee. Thou art here, where can I go from
thy presence. For thine is the kingdom, and the power.
I meditate upon this and contemplate the beep of the system,
the pressure on my arm, the woman with her husband, her
marriage in Christ, and the closeness of their concern in
love of waiting, the glory, oh, yes, thine is greater than the
cosmos of imagining. A creation beyond of goodness, a place
of beginning that is where the I am that I am for you have
come across me and the saints are living presences among
the waiting in the rooms curtained one from another. Forever
and ever. Amen. I ponder, I contemplate, I look for meditation,
the baby is a joy to everyone. Whose heart is this saint's? A
charity of visitation, a transfiguration of compassion, a continuation
of a journey in prayer. The lady across the long room wants
me to say confession for her.
Yours sincerely,
