Not to wax poetic . . .

Dr. McDonnell

“Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.” -William Carlos Williams

Thanks to the Polar Vortex, this has been a harsh-some might say cruel-winter in my little town that sits along the border between North and South.

Thankfully, we have the poetry of William Carlos Williams to help get us through these frigid days-reminding us that winter is a time of peace, and that the wise trees of Baltimore have prepared their buds and will soon bring forth a beautiful and fragrant springtime.

Williams was a physician who practiced in Paterson, NJ. He took care of patients by day and wrote poetry in the evenings. Although he was only a part-time poet, he won the first National Book Award for Poetry in 1950, was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1963, and-like all the true greats-was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2009.

Although many of us physicians might view his two careers as not an obvious fit-with most medical students these days having been science majors in school-Williams considered the pairing to be a natural one.

He said: “When they ask me, as of late they frequently do, how I have for so many years continued an equal interest in medicine and the poem, I reply that they amount for me to nearly the same thing.”

This feeling that medicine and the poem are the same is reflected in these lines by Williams, in which we can imagine that he is reflecting equally on the effect of winter’s arrival on the leaves and on the effect of advancing age on an elderly patient who is encountering the frailty that comes in the winter of life.

“Some leaves hang late, some fall

before the first frost-so goes

the tale of winter branches and old bones.”

A reader’s suggestion

My alleged friend in California, a loyal Ophthalmology Times reader, e-mailed me recently, clearly expressing her Schadenfreude upon the latest snowstorm to blanket my part of the country.

Her message asked me to perform a certain task:

“I hope (if you haven't done so yet) you provide a provocative editorial comparing the polar vortex akin to health-care reform-or something along that line. . . . :-)”

Normally I don’t take such suggestions seriously. Plus, at the time this is written we are still in winter, a time of peace and rest, and not the time to provoke my dear readers. But it is heartless to ignore e-mails that end with an emoticon.

So, I asked another friend for some insights about our vigorous winter and health-care reform.

“What is the difference between our winter weather and health-care reform?” I asked.

“That’s easy,” she replied. “Some people can actually predict what will happen with the weather.”

“I think you are joking,” I said. “What I want to know is, what distinguishes the polar vortex from ‘ObamaCare’?”

“That’s easy. One is making people miserable and confused, from Chicago to Atlanta, and according to economists, is hurting the economy and our industries. The other is cold weather.”

“No, I mean the storms!” I said.

“Well,” responded my friend, “William Carlos Williams wrote that ‘Time is a storm in which we are all lost. Only inside the convolutions of the storm itself shall we find our directions.’”

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