“I give you my guessing tubes”: 4 poems by Rae Varcoe

Dr Rae Varcoe was a Leukaemia and Lymphoma Physician at Auckland Hospital for 30 years. She has been a poetry reader for much longer and began writing verse at Victoria University’s inaugural MA class in 1997. Poetry has been one of the buttresses of her life in medicine.

the grief in you                  

let me speak to
the grief in you

to the daily
absent presence
and the heavy
insistence of loss

to the fact that you too,
now go without a compass
with no lodestar
and alone

can comfort come
from her Philosophy
or your Psychiatry?

or is there even less there
than in the lost God
of your childhood?

my mourning friend
what will become of you?
who will you become?

let the great grief
within you
speak to me

For Rossi, on admission to medical school

on this last day of my doctoring
I give you my guessing tubes,
my blue, not new, stethoscope

it is a Littman
bought in Boston
with Cynthia in 1987

it has heard  the whole range of murmurs,
clicks, taps, knocks, plops, opening snaps
and also Morris Minor piston slap

it has heard first breaths
last breaths
and no breaths

between my ears
it has generated interest,
pride, puzzlement and fear

by the time you graduate
it may be obsolete,
and auscultation all electronic

but keep it discretely
do not flaunt it
or misread this gift

I give it to remind you
that the essence of medicine
lies in listening

For Rossi, who becomes a doctor on Monday

Your degree will be awarded with Distinction
and you are certain that you will be a surgeon.
Your surgical mentor says ” you were born for this”.
That is delving up to your elbows in entrails.

Few students are so certain they’ll be a surgeon.
I know you can stand the cut and thrust of competition
while delving up to your elbows in entrails
but it will be hard to hold on to your humanity.

I know you will withstand the cut and thrust of competition
and I hope you continue to think like a physician.
It will be hard to hold on to your humanity
and accommodate the necessary narcissism of the very ill.

May you continue to think like a physician.
Even when fatigue breeds despair you must
accommodate the necessary narcissism of the very ill.
Can you save yourself some space for poetry?

Even when fatigue breeds despair you must
reward those who put their trust in you.
Plan to save yourself some space for poetry,
and find friends who surf on upward gusts of laughter.

You must reward those who put their trust in you.
Your surgeon mentor who knows you were born for this
is a friend who surfs on upward gusts of laughter.
He knows your career will be one of distinction.

A recycled triolet for newly hatched doctors

Swot ’til you drop. Read until your brain bleeds
but the art of medicine’s very hard to master.
At night, the wards are scary, dark and deep
though you swot ’til you drop and read until your brain bleeds
there will be queues of calls before you sleep
and only you to keep your patients from disaster.
Swot ’til you drop. Read until your brain bleeds.
Still, the art of medicine’s very hard to master.

Dr Rae Varcoe: Rae Varcoe’s poetry is widely published in magazines and literary journals.

Her first collection, Tributary, appeared in 2007 from Victoria University Press.