SAINT JULIAN PRESS POET
Catharine Clark-Sayles
What We Carry
For Dr. Oskar
Your shoulders, lumpy and misshapen, are giving you pain.
I look at the X-ray on the wall, strange alignment and rotations—
and ask how this came to be. In a soft voice you recite facts: sixteen,
lines—you sent left, mothers and sisters sent right,
blue numbers inked on your arm, I have seen them and know--
in abstraction—the meaning, now you tell me about beatings,
of being hung by your wrists with hands tied behind your back,
then a march through snow, how the ones who fell were shot.
You tell me all this gently and I hear the end of the story--
American POWs dressed you in bits of their uniforms, insisted
you were one of them, how they helped you later to New York,
to a life of poet, doctor, and scholar. Last month— a grandson’s bar mitzvah.
You say you don’t really believe in God, but your grandson does
and you are proud of that. I struggle for balance, my careful
objective distance smashed on the walls of your story,
you apologize for tears in my eyes. But if you can bear to love
children, love a woman for fifty-seven years, love gardens, pear trees
you grafted yourself, love the iambic beat of a poem;
if you can bear to live, how can I not bear to carry your story?
I look at the X-ray on the wall, strange alignment and rotations—
and ask how this came to be. In a soft voice you recite facts: sixteen,
lines—you sent left, mothers and sisters sent right,
blue numbers inked on your arm, I have seen them and know--
in abstraction—the meaning, now you tell me about beatings,
of being hung by your wrists with hands tied behind your back,
then a march through snow, how the ones who fell were shot.
You tell me all this gently and I hear the end of the story--
American POWs dressed you in bits of their uniforms, insisted
you were one of them, how they helped you later to New York,
to a life of poet, doctor, and scholar. Last month— a grandson’s bar mitzvah.
You say you don’t really believe in God, but your grandson does
and you are proud of that. I struggle for balance, my careful
objective distance smashed on the walls of your story,
you apologize for tears in my eyes. But if you can bear to love
children, love a woman for fifty-seven years, love gardens, pear trees
you grafted yourself, love the iambic beat of a poem;
if you can bear to live, how can I not bear to carry your story?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catharine Clark-Sayles grew up in a military family, went to medical school, and became an Army doctor, followed by a private internal medicine and geriatrics practice. In 2019 she completed an MFA in poetry and narrative medicine at the Dominican University of California. Tebot Bach Press published previous collections, One Breath and Lifeboat and a chapbook, Brats,published by Finishing Line Press. The Telling, The Listening is her fourth book drawn from forty-five years of medical practice.
Catharine Clark-Sayles grew up in a military family, went to medical school, and became an Army doctor, followed by a private internal medicine and geriatrics practice. In 2019 she completed an MFA in poetry and narrative medicine at the Dominican University of California. Tebot Bach Press published previous collections, One Breath and Lifeboat and a chapbook, Brats,published by Finishing Line Press. The Telling, The Listening is her fourth book drawn from forty-five years of medical practice.
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Publication Date: October 6, 2023
Paperback: $18.00 Publisher: Saint Julian Press, Inc. Language: English Paperback: 84 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-955194-18-1 For an advance copy, contact: Ron Starbuck or Catharine Clark-Sayles. |
Available Through ~ Ingram Content Group ~ Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ IndieBound ~ Bookshop ~ Book Depository (UK) ~ Fine Book Distributors & Retailers
Saint Julian Press, Inc. * Houston, TX 77008 * Ron Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * Web: www.saintjulianpress.com
Saint Julian Press, Inc. * Houston, TX 77008 * Ron Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * Web: www.saintjulianpress.com
SAINT JULIAN PRESS, INC. © 2022
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As an Amazon Associate — Saint Julian Press, Inc. may earn funds from any qualifying purchases.
This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.