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Every surgeon carries within themself a small cemetery, where from time to time they go to pray—a place of bitterness and regret, where they must look for an explanation for their failures.
René Leriche, La philosophie de la chirurgie
Is each failure wrapped like a wire round your heart?
Have the cold, bitter tears that you’ve hidden inside
Turned to verglas, a thick coat of rime
That deadens the barbs, and freezes the hurt?
Bound in the graveyard’s wintry embrace,
Do you long, as I do, for the coming of spring,
For the soft healing waters that summer should bring,
Yet fear all the memories entombed in the ice?
I’ve toiled in that acre, and carry the scars,
Watched as the hawthorn and bramble have grown;
But I’ve seen them both blossom with newly washed stars,
And bear precious fruit from this blest, hallowed ground,
In the light of the one who can wipe all those tears,
And take on himself that cruel, thorny crown.
Easter 2019
