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Monday
I report today on a lovely note I received from a reader recounting how he used a poem in a critical situation. Anyone about to undergo a surgical operation should consider sharing Denise Levertov’s “The Avowal” with his or her operating team.
Responding to my recent post on how Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia inspired a cancer researcher to a breakthrough discovery, the reader wrote,
Poetry, drama, science, our hearts work together. Yesterday, moments before I was to fall asleep, I invited my new heart pacemaker team to take a moment for a benediction. My doctor hadn’t entered yet, but a team of five became still. I recited “The Avowal” by Denise Levertov, and all paused, listened, and nodded before returning to their labors.
The surgery was apparently successful. “All is well,” the patient reported. “Especially when we work together.”
Here’s the poem, which echoes metaphysical poet George Herbert in title and sentiment (although Herbert sometimes struggles a bit more before surrendering to God’s “all-surrounding grace”). Levertov informs us she wrote it to celebrate the poet’s birthday:
The Avowal
By Denise Levertov
For Carolyn Kizer and John Woodbridge,
Recalling Our Celebration
of George Herbert’s Birthday, 1983As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.
I imagine the patient, as the anesthesia is about to take effect, thinking of himself floating in the “Creator Spirit’s deep embrace.” He is daring “to lie face to the sky.” How could his operating team not take special care with someone who has, so thoughtfully, surrendered his body to their care?
I suspect, when performing a routine surgery, such medical professionals are in danger of regarding themselves as mere mechanics of the body. Hearing a patient cite “The Avowal” would remind them of medicine’s higher calling. And perhaps why they became doctors in the first place.
