Doctor

He paced up and down the corridor,

Like  a swinging pendulum, in the day.

His wife sat weeping on a chair,

He didn't know what to say.

He glanced at the doors of the ICU,

His daughter was in there,

He didn't believe it was happening,

Was it another nightmare?

Since long the sorrow had weighed him down,

The time came when none remained,

The worried man then burst out,

Into startling anger untrained.

Why do they make us weep for long?

Why do they turn our eyes sore?

Why do they pretend to try so hard?

When in the end they’ll say, “She’s no more.”

When the doctor came out, white coat clad,

It was feared he’d say that in vain he had thrived.

But his face was calm, and eyes were glad.

“Congratulations, she has survived.”

He could not believe what he had heard,

As he thought that her end was near.

For the first time then, in several hours, there came,

In his eyes, a glistening tear.

“You have saved a patient

I know, that’s fine.

But why do you smile,

When the joy is mine?

You go through those doors, worked out,

Yet you exit happily.

You work here from night to day,

Don’t you have a family?”

The doctor glanced first at him,

Then at his wife beside.

With a wink in his eye, and a

Smile on his face, he then replied.

“Alas, I am a doctor!

In this world I am alone.

I could not quit, I did not.

For in your dear daughter,

​I saw my own.”