"Ficus Lyrata"

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One September morning,

the day I started medical school,

I placed a two-foot specimen

in my sunny south window.

Then Chicago froze into fall

and reams of lecture notes

swelled into huge white drifts,

the heart-shaped ficus leaves

dropping like sad notes from

a Spanish song, and by finals

nothing remained except

rough brown scars

on cracked dead stems.

Today, on her own

September morning,

my daughter starts medical school

while I scratch my bald head

and wonder why she chose

to follow my old ambition.

I wish I knew the way

to protect her from the avalanche

of facts and nights on call,

but all I can do is ramble around

the house, checking our plants

for aphids, feeding them

all the Miracle Grow I can find.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 26 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.