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Richard Berlin, M.D.: “There is something about the condensed pressure of poetry that feels very natural to me.”
At the end of winter
squirrels and coons forage
at the wood line, the fox
bounces by with a blue jay in his grin,
and a possum on our plowed driveway
looks so pale my daughter believes
she’s seen a ghost. This morning
a bobcat sits in the meadow
like an Egyptian statue,
the way I do with patients,
just another critter
with my hairless white coat
dragging on the ground,
two short legs raising me
high enough to see a hungry world.
And I make my muted calls,
run down whatever paths are cleared,
the smell of death in my nostrils,
praise on my lips
for any healing the earth might offer.