The Human Touch 2013 - University of Colorado Denver

Lament of a Retired Eye Surgeon [Continued]
No need to rush, nowhere to go,
no place he has to be.
When he retired he thought he would do
all the things he ever wanted to.
The homeless come here to see,
or just come for some place to be.
“I lost my glasses.”
“I broke them in a fi ght.”
“When I woke up they were gone,
they were on my face last night.”
It all went by so quickly. He was in school,
then in school again.
Then long days into night, then day again.
And fi nally the thrill and joy and dread
of taking the knife into his own hand.
The years of practice spent with his patients
were the best years of his life,
Made sweeter by his children
and the love shared with his wife.
What’s better now, one or two?
“Two.”
And now, one or two?
“Two.”
And so it goes until clarity jumps off the wall.
“That’s more like it doc,
that’s a….that’s like a damned miracle!”
Though there was serious contemplation,
it nevertheless stopped short.
Once more; What was the reason?
A question he asks the mirror
in his own early morning court.
But it was not so simple,
like better One or Two.
He swore the grass looked greener,
at least a shade or two.
There was clear center to his question,
but the edges remained blurred,
And now he sees it was the edges
where he really worked and lived.
You gave it up? This for that?
Why would you?
Why would you do a thing like that?
Had he known that in putting down the knife,
he would be cutting out such a large part of his life,
he may have waited for the knife to tell,
When he could no longer hold it,
straight, and true, and well.
“I can’t believe I’m here doc;
It can’t be what it seems.
I had a life, yea with ups and downs,
but I had a lot of dreams.
I thought I knew what I was doing;
I thought I had a plan.
I was a living feeling person.
Hell, I was a work’n man.”
And so the more we all seem different
the more we seem the same.
It’s never clear and simple,
there’s seldom just one blame.
Once the genie’s left the bottle though
a new story soon begins,
That’s just another journey
with different bumps and bends. •
PG 142
PG 143