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"Tools"

"Each spring, when earth warms and begs me to open its dark skin, I carry them past flowering apples and pears to the quiet square of garden..."

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    Any Good Poem

    Richard Berlin, MD, shares his poem "Tools," which is featured in the April 2023 issue of Psychiatric Times.


    Tools

    -for my friend, mentor, and editor, Barry Sternlieb

    They hang from the rack:

    my father’s spade saving last year’s mud,

    a long-tined rake, the swan-neck hoe.

    Each spring, when earth warms and begs

    me to open its dark skin, I carry them

    past flowering apples and pears to the quiet

    square of garden, to excite what lies buried

    beneath the surface. The spade slices deep,

    turns clay and compost in a wet, fertile dough

    combed smooth by the rake’s thin hand.

    The graceful hoe chops dandelions

    that intrude like obsessions

    and waits patiently to scrape purslane

    when it grows fast as jealousy in July.

    I love their simple handles, the smooth taper

    of oiled oak and ash, their honest grains

    spiraling like a patient’s thoughts.


    My psychiatrist tools are simple too:

    a room with a closed door, a few chairs, pills,

    and packets of words I cultivate like, that hurts or yes, I see,

    words that smooth a surface or dig up something dormant

    like last year’s seeds stirred from below

    whispering green shoots toward the first hope of warmth.


    Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 25 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 Freud on My Couch.

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