By Taylor Tucker
a Lion sleeps
so others may know peace
a dark night ends
the glow of Mourning begins
a new dawn and new day
but the memories, they stay
as she closes her eyes
the ones she holds dear will rise
the Lion sleeps
now others
know peace
Taylor Tucker, M.D., is a Resident Physician at UAMS.
By Paulette Guerin
Living by the hospital I hear
at any hour the helicopter
lifting someone in or out.
The sky is neither open nor quiet.
The stars don’t turn away;
they are sucked blind in the city lights.
We’ve spent years praying
for those airdropped in.
We’ll never know their names.
Paulette Guerin lives in Arkansas and teaches writing, literature, and film. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, The Southern Review, epiphany, Carve Magazine, and others. She is the author of Wading Through Lethe (FutureCycle Press) and When I First Loved You (forthcoming from Belle Point Press). She also has a chapbook, Polishing Silver, as well as a chapbook-sized selection in the anthology Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry (Cornerpost Press). Her website is pauletteguerin.com.
By Hira Zafar
In the world of “fear of missing out “
I see faces missing out on life
I see eyes filled with emptiness
I see minds constantly at war
I see hearts about to burst
In the world of “to be honest”
I see lies dripping from the mouths
I see betrayal hinted in the shouts
I see prejudice
I see racial privilege
In the world of “you only live once”
I see people dying of neglect
I see people dying of hunger
I see people dying of sniper shot,
Bombing, drone attack, detonating pager
In the world of “one of my followers”
I see the tiny ones with non-accidental trauma
I see the frail with elder abuse
I see hate crimes
I see intolerance for any and every opinion
In the world of “profile picture”
I see the struggle of weight loss
I see the efforts of weight gain
I see beauty behind the scars
I see the ugliness behind the charm
In the world of “the perfect”
I see the broken
I see the imperfect
I see the shaken
I see you
In my world where no one else sees you,
I see your misery
I see your heartbreak
I see your eyes brimming with desire
I see your ire
I wish they could see it too
I wish they could feel it too
I wish for unconditional love
I wish for a utopian world
Hira Zafar is an adult neurology resident at UAMS. She loves traveling and experiencing diverse cultures with her six-year-old, learning new recipes, and advocating for patients with neurological disorders.
By Sabrina Leonard
Too busy to think and too strong to cry
Life must keep going, no time to think about why
Despite opposition, failure, and pain
Find a reason to sing, even in the rain
Storms may come and we may get wet
But sunshine is next, to help you forget
The dark times, the cold nights, all of the sorrow
Just keep moving forward and be optimistic about tomorrow
Be steadfast and unmovable, there’s always a way out
Keep the faith, hold on to hope, and let go of doubt
You have to keep going to persevere my friend
No matter how long it takes, you win in the end.
Sabrina Leonard is a PA student at UAMS. Poetry has been a personal outlet for her, helping her navigate her own struggles with depression and anxiety while fueling my passion to continue my academic journey. She hopes this poem offers encouragement or strength to others who read it.
By Jessiela Roberts
“I have nothing more to give. I have run out of gas.”
These were the tragic last words said by a fellow physician before ending it all.
I wish I could borrow one of those precious last minutes to tell him that he wasn’t alone:
I, too, have been there, and there is light on the other side of darkness.
Often, we must look within for the courage to reach out for a torch in the dark.
There is one where we least expect.
Broken candles can be relit even when they have burnt out.
Though diminished by circumstances, a fire can be awakened with a small gust of wind.
I wish I could tell him,
“Tomorrow is depending on you to show up, so don’t give up today without a fight.
There are more people for you than against you.
There is so much good in you, in the world, and in our profession still.”
I wish that every healer who feels the embers of hope slowly burning out will remember to turn their face towards heaven and catch a gust of wind so strong that it is enough to ignite a wildfire.
Strong enough to overcome the despair and replace it with hope.
Strong enough to remind themselves that they are enough, that they are more than the initials or lack thereof at the end of their names.
They are more than their mistakes or deficiencies.
They are more than that exam or negative remark from an attending.
I wish I could shout from the mountain top to say that they are human first and healers second.
It’s ok to prioritize themselves and get the help needed to refill their gas tanks.
It’s ok to pursue that which sets their soul on fire, even though it may upset the status quo.
I wish they knew that they are equally deserving of the respect, dignity, and compassion they give to their patients.
Collectively, we are more powerful than we think, and together we can be the change we want to see.
Small flickers of light can glow in the dark; random acts of kindness can keep someone’s lamp from burning out.
We are not all guilty of eating our young.
We don’t all breathe the air of self-importance.
We don’t all fuel our own ego by stumping out the flames of the weak with our influence.
To the struggling: There are those of us who see you, who feel you, and are ready to make space for you.
There are those of us who keep our lighthouses lit, because we know what it’s like to have been lost and burnt in the dark.
Since I can’t be everywhere, and I can’t save everyone, I pass the torch to you reading this poem to spread hope and love in the dark corners of our profession.
Because sometimes as physicians we can’t heal ourselves—we need others to heal us.
Jessiela Roberts, M.D., is a Family Medicine Specialist in Fort Smith, Arkansas. She is a graduate of Trinity School of Medicine.
By Charles Hayden Strahan
There is nothing more simple
than how you find your joy.
And not the kind that’s derived
from games or from toys.
But rather, it’s natural.
The little things on this planet,
that as I’ve grown older
I’ve taken for granted.
I’ve seen you on mornings
that don’t start off right,
where you’re tired, or hungry,
or couldn’t sleep through the night.
Your eyes full of tears.
You scream and you shout.
You fight every step
As we make our way out.
But as soon as you see
those purple-pink skies
I watch as the sun
and your spirits both rise.
And I’ve seen you on evenings
you don’t want to be over,
when you’d rather stay out
picking flowers and clovers.
And although we both know
it’s time to head off to bed
before we go in
we make a quick stop instead.
We walk to the corner
where we can hear the bugs cry.
And to you they sing songs
like sweet lullabies.
I’m afraid I can’t see
Or hear the world like you do
But I feel the world’s light
shining brightly through you.
So when the hustle and bustle
of the world gets too loud
your laugh sings like crickets
and I tune the rest out.
When the fog starts to roll in
and my clouds start to gray,
your smile is my pink sky
and I know I’m okay.
Charles Hayden Strahan is a Receiving Administrative Coordinator at UAMS Northwest.
By Jonathan Aibel
The hole in my chest,
better than a daily pierce,
my three-headed dock
for tubes. Hard to distinguish
medicine from venom. Spins
sometimes, the hospital,
nurses interrupt dreams,
the bed squeals in alarm
if I try to get up
on my own. I’m doing well,
they say. I never know
from minute to shivering
minute. Waiting on me
to emerge, fight the cells
circulating my seas, restore
to something I recognize, me.
Jonathan B. Aibel is a recovering software engineer who lives in Concord, Massachusetts, traditional homelands of the Nipmuc. His poems have been published in Barrelhouse, Chautauqua, Pangyrus, Lily Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, and elsewhere. Jonathan’s chapbook Echoes of Uruk was a semi-finalist for the Tupelo Press 2024 Snowbound Prize. http://www.jbaibelpoet.com.
By Rachel Armes-McLaughlin
I was sitting down to dinner
when you left this earth.
I had just bathed my daughter
and looked at the time.
I could smell the roasted vegetables.
Dinner was later than usual—
The chicken took forever,
and the cabbage burned.
The leftovers are in my fridge,
but I don’t think they’ll be eaten.
Maybe it’s silly, but I keep thinking
about how I cooked for you
and your daughter,
long before mine was born.
You didn’t like to cook meat yourself,
but I think you would have liked the chicken.
I wish you could have been here,
instead of where you were
and where you are now.
Rachel Armes-McLaughlin, a grant writer with the UAMS Institute for Digital Health and Innovation, has written poetry for over 20 years. Her work is published in Loblolly Press; Middle Mouse Press; Medicine and Meaning, where she reviews poetry; and a Central Arkansas Library System anthology, with one poem nominated for Best of the Net. Rachel lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with her husband, daughter, and cats.
By Jacqueline Coleman-Fried
I expect he’ll come home
from the hospital—thin,
but still barrel-chested.
I’ll nurse him.
Buy boxes of Ensure.
Paper underwear.
Put out blue towels, flower
sheets on our queen bed.
Tisch, 17 West,
Room 15—
There are two stiff mattresses
close enough to kiss.
And through a large, clear window—
the black, black night.
Under a head light, I see
my husband’s lips
quiver when he snores.
Step close enough
to stroke his forehead, his neck.
To whisper words.
Will he hear?
This sterile hospital room
is our bedroom, where shared
sleep and darkness
are intimate as sex.
Morning. Still breathing.
I take the train home.
A hushed phone call
before sun the next day.
He’s hard as marble, soon
to be ash.
I wash the floral sheets, return
the blue towels to the closet.
Weeks later, I etch the night—
to fix it, to hold it.
Jacqueline Coleman-Fried is a poet who lives in Tuckahoe, New York. Her work has appeared in The Orchards Poetry Journal, Nixes Mate, Streetlight Magazine, New Verse News and Consequence.
By Rachel Greenberg
Nearing cronehood
I’ve had my share of trauma and tragedy.
Buried loved ones,
my own war wounds.
To those who seek healing,
now that I know what I know
I want to tell them this:
Don’t you know that your pain is metaphor
your loss, poetic
the horrors you’ve experienced, heroic?
Everything is a symbol of something else
like these leaves clinging
to their last vestiges of life
before they spin to earth,
like the cold darkness before dawn,
like the wild geese just outside my window.
They call to me
as you tell your story.
Rachel Greenberg is a therapist, poet, memoirist and storyteller who lives in bucolic Western Massachusetts. She has a private practice and her work as a therapist and love of wild spaces inform her writing. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the Atlanta Review, the Elysium Review, Mama Stew, the Main Street Rag, and the Sun Magazine.
