(060) Pain And Palliative Care Poem by premji premji

This window,
how do I
define it?
Where do I
fix it?

Today,
it rains heavily!
Still, how bright
and silent
the long corridors
of this pain clinic! *

Sitting beside
the book shelves
in the library,
my eyes
gazed through the
small notes on the walls:
`Stop smoking,
Save yourself...'
And something on cancer
awareness...

Suddenly doctor* came
and sat with me.
So simple and lazy
his attire,
beautiful
his well trimmed beard,
merciful
his eyes-
even light-years
not sufficient enough
to measure
the depth of them,
kind his voice-
soft and generous,
fills your souls
with so much of belief
and enthusiasm!

With patience immense,
he answered
all my questions,
gave some brochures:
`Freedom from pains...
Little bit more of life...'

Pointing to their logo,
he told, ' Very simple,
three pictures-
a window,
a bird flies up
and a flower,
drawn by one of
our patients...'

My heart
felt so heavy
while leaving from there.
A great sorrow
torments it even now:
who drew it? I didn't ask,
couldn't visit that
lone heart, if alive...

Dear friend,
frontiers are common ones....
And you drew this window
to fix on the great wall
separating life and death,
didn't you?

Through this smiling flower,
you mean: comeback to life,
peaceful days
in unison with nature,
buds of hope,
don't you?

And your bird:
flies up
from this great prison
called earth
to the free skies of
eternal peace,
doesn't it?

Dear,
you defined
the undefined
with just three symbols!
Let me kiss
those pale fingers
with my soul!

And those two squares
left unfilled,
what do they symbolize?

'Your heartlessness...'

Whose voice is that?


09.09.98

A window, with four squares inside, is the logo of pain and palliative care clinic, Medical College, Calicut and this poem is the explanation of that window. Unfortunately I cannot include that logo here. Just imagine a window with four squares and whose upper left square consists the image of bird flying up. The lower right square has the picture of a flower.

*Dr.Sureshkumar, PPC

In our country, more than a million people are suffering from cancer. And 80% of them are in the uncontrollable and incurable state even at the time of diagnosis. What can we, do for them? Palliative care is the answer. It is the latest branch of modern medical science. Palliative care society functions for those patients who are incurable and those who suffer from pain. The clinic functions only from the help of kind people and their donations. The patients, they don’t need your sympathy, they need love.The government has to relax the supply of pain killers like morphine for the suffering patients since most of the painkillers are included in the list of ‘drugs! ’

We request all writers to send copies of their books for the light reading of patients in PPC. Let us pray for our brothers and sisters, light their life, bright and colourful. Number of patients is increasing day by day, requirements also. Kindly extend your co-operation, only we are there to help them. Kindly send your donations to:

Secretary,
Pain and palliative care society,
Medical college.P.O.
Calicut - 673008.
Kerala, India.