Marking the Retirement of a Physician

In honor of Dr. Larry Wu

I dreamed I was a coal miner
Leading a long phalanx of faces
Some were frightened, all were feeling
Uneasy down in the coal mine.

The sick and unwell, gulping my words
Of assurance I but half believed
Or not at all. It is a sin to lie
But sometimes you do, down in the coal mine.

Gemstones, they say, are among the rocks
As I duck debris, digging deep
To deliver the dyspneic, despairing and doomed
From beneath the rubble in the coal mine.

My conferred white coat, now smote
With the abrasion of time. Covered with grime,
Blood, and shit. Which is a better fit
For this brutal business, down in the coal mine.

I am no priest but here the terrified
Will tell you secrets. And ask you questions
As if you know what the hell you are doing
Making you laugh and cry, and wonder why-

Why, you might ask, persist with this task
Rock ripped from rock, flesh flayed from bone?
Well, you come to believe that every stone
Has a soul. And these you own.

I never hefted shovel or pick
But staggered with the weight of the sick
And felt their fevers’ hellish heat.
And atmospheres of pressure. And doubt.

Poring over papers by the stack,
Peering through scopes, searching for cracks
In the bearing beams that would bury my mistakes
And what I’d like to forget. Oft have I sweat
Down here in the coal mine.

All throughout  this fervid dream
My helmet bore  the solitary lamp,
A Privilege as great as Responsibility’s weight.
You get used to it, down in the coal mine. 

Used to it, yes. But truth be told
It never got old. Though I did. 
A forty year dream come true.
My undimmed light shone through.

And If I am allowed one final boast
I kept the Hippocratic Oath.
Not an ounce of regret I did my time
Down and dirty in the  coal mine.
****