Hurried Prayer to My Chainsaw

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem "Hurried Prayer to My Chainsaw" by Samuel Green. Green was raised in the city of Anacortes, Washington. After 4 years in the military, including service in Antarctica and South Vietnam, he attended college and graduated under the Veterans Vocational Rehabilitation Program. An educator for 46-years, he has taught in countless classrooms and many universities. In December 2007, Green was named the Inaugural Poet Laureate for the State of Washington. Along with his wife Sally, Sam is coeditor of the award-winning Brooding Heron Press, which produces fine, letter-pressed volumes. He has lived off the grid for 40 years on remote Waldron Island in the log house he built himself… with the assistance of his chainsaw.

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.