The Nightingale Lost Her Lamp
THE NIGHTINGALE LOST HER LAMP
Anita’s eyes were brown.
She was the kindest of angels.
Her speech firm with authority
but reassuring with a glass- like
sensitivity; she seemed to know all.
Prompt as a rooster's first crow,
that's how she is.
She stands like a lioness
ever ready to act, a channel
to prolong the patient's life.
Her heart is a captive cog
of dedicated compassion:
as a wife, as a mother, as a Dean,
Professor, and as a nurse.
She stood always regal in white.
Bearing a sanction of life and death
with each shot made by her gentle hands.
She had Tiger eyes for signs and symptoms;
sponges to absorb order and pressures,
she was simply a lamp for a sick person.
Our batch, she handles with iron fist.
Labeled as "black sheep" – for some of us
are noisy cans but empty inside.
Black sheep but later turned into
the cream of the crop. She stood as
our Samson pillars then despite canyons of
doubts and critiques, our batch defies the odds.
Yet, one day a snapshot happened –
She fainted while teaching.
She was brought to the hospital,
scrutinized and observed like
the frog in my sophomore year.
I was one of the nurses who rendered care.
I watched, how the shining light in her eyes
turned to stormy sadness. I have heard
how her sturdy voice now sounded
a tattered tape only syllables and groans,
no more. Her before supple glowing skin
turned a wrinkled ash — all tautness gone.
Finally, she needs only bags of blood
in two days her life passed my Anita...
_______________________________________________________
Sponsor Thomas Martin
Contest Name Show but Don't Tell
Placed 3rd...
O.E. Guillermo
5:15 pm, May 19, 2015
|