As a 78-year-old research chemical engineer who was 20 years into his retirement, I never expected to start writing poetry. My college training and 37-year career were exclusively technical, with a minimum of courses in the humanities.

Prostate cancer for me and breast cancer for my wife Marion jolted my calm, relaxing lifestyle and led me in a very different direction.

While recovering from radiation and a subsequent operation I took a workshop at the Wellness Community in Del Marva from John Fox on Healing Through Poetry. This new outlet for my raging emotions led to the Compassion 101 poem.

Do Doctors take Compassion 101?
Are they taught how to treat us with kindness?
Can Considerate Cancer Care be instilled from without?
Compassion must come from somewhere, but where?

If Doctors do take Compassion 101
Do they get marks from the teacher?
Are there A students and B students?
And what about the dunce of the class?

Three doctors knew my prostate well,
One said, “Call me at anytime!”
The second said, “Daytime or nighttime!”
The third said, “Do you realize how many patients I would have to call?”

Should I feel lucky to have had two doctors with A's and only one with an F?

Originally written just for me it seemed to express the feelings of other patients. Interest in that poem led to invitations in 2005 and 2006 to speak to medical students at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey about the need for compassionate doctors.

My poems and the stories of my fellow cancer support group members tried to make clear the strong feelings of the patient about the need for considerate cancer care from the doctor. Those appearances led to sever- al TV interviews, a poetry reading on National Public Radio, an article in the Wall Street Journal, and a mention of my poetry as a way to heal in the new book, The Total Cancer Wellness Guide.

I’ve written many poems with titles like: Meditation I, My Wellness Shelter, Biopsy and David’s Choice. David was a member of my support group. This poem describes our last meeting with him. His metastasized cancer kept spreading and he asked for our advice. He went home and died, peacefully, within a week.

Six of us sat in a circle
Talking about David, with David.

Too much radiation, more and more chemo,
Which way to go, what to do next?

Ours to advise and support,
His the decision to make.

Continue chemo? Open Wound Clinic?
Any new treatments to try?

And then with a thunderclap of clarity,
Came a quiet whisper of wisdom!

It’s all right David,
It’s all right to let go!

David went home, Hospice came to him.
Family and friends, he in his favorite chair.

Go gently, dear David,
Go gently into that good, peaceful, healing, night.


I wrote a poem inspired by my wife called Marion’s Garden of Hope. Marion, is a master gardener. Her year of treatments and operations for breast cancer in 2006 was a difficult one. She had to watch me fumble around in her garden, trying to follow her directions. I felt bad for her; I knew she was itching to get back to her favorite pastime. To see her finally choosing plants from catalogues and being able to dig into that soil was uplifting—for her and for me.

Last year’s garden was bleak,
A few annuals were all she could do,
Mammograms and Mastectomies, Radiation and Reconstruction,
They took up most of her time.
This year’s sun is stronger and brighter,
She’s planting perennials now,
Marigold and Meadowsweet, Rudbeckia and Rose of Sharon, Perennials for all those years to come!


The poem just poured out of me. It was a reflection on Marion's fight with cancer and her hope for the future, written within the framework of her love of gardening.

Poetry has allowed me to be emotionally expressive, a place I had never visited. It may sound trite but it opened up a whole new world for me, a world I explore daily, a world I delight in. Poetry has also given me a vehicle to help other people face cancer and to make physicians aware of their responsibility to treat us with respect for our human- ness and our dignity.

I'm 78 years old, retired since 1987. My prostate cancer remains in remission, side effects have diminished. Anew emphasis on health led to classes in Yoga and Tai-Chi. Improved leg strength allowed me to complete two half-marathons, one in Ocean City, MD, the other on the island of Jamaica. Both races were fundraisers for The Wellness
Community.

Last summer I was able to return as a volunteer naturalist at the Assateague National Seashore. I teach visitors how to clam, crab, fish in the surf, and to better understand our coastal environment.

The subjects of my poetry have expanded from just cancer and pain to include my whole world. I now see metaphors and similes in everything I do. My daily walks have become meditative walks where I have worked out poems on clamming, body surfing, bait fish, and old age.

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