Beyond the Stethescope
If you are a physician with a hobby (photography, poetry, etc),
we invite you to share it with our readers. Our newspaper
is distributed to 35 hospitals and the deans of every medical
school in NYC. The general public has access through schools,
streetcorner boxes, apartment buildings and subscriptions.
Donald Feinfeld, M.D., Chairman, Department of Medicine, Nassau
University Medical Center is a published poet.
Solfeggio
(In memoriam: Dr. Jay Liveson, Neurologist)
It’s a tune where the notes
slide
down the scale, sol to fa, before
they rise again, spread into melody
that tracks back to the origin.
Rhythm drums once and again, charges
my brain to remember your stepfall.
If you could hear sol-fa,
you’d joke about sulfa drugs
or your aunt’s old sofa.
Words laughed and sang to you
as you walked the cliffside
or glided needles into nerves.
You knew how they branch and branch,
carry music in shivers and pain.
With old chants slipping up and down
through your head, you wrote poems.
When your heart snapped,
they rose from the wreck, shouting
for more brightness, more words.
Sing the heavens, sing the hills,
run scales to their roots
in Hebrew, English, Yiddish.
Along the path of glowing nerves
your verses flow, sol-fa,
down to their starting place.
