Poems for Every Waiting Room

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver: The Summer Day

Just two lines, I know. But two lines that do more to stir me from slumber than the frothy exhortations of any motivational speaker on the circuit. Such is the power of verse.

Think of all the mundane waiting rooms strewn with ragged magazines with articles about how to cope with wrinkles or please your partner. Now what if those same waiting rooms each had a book of poems? Only got a minute to wait? No probs. You can read one poem. More if the one you’re waiting for is running late.

Unlike the novel which takes you on a lengthy sojourn, a poem stops the clock long enough to provide a moment of clarity or comfort, beauty or understanding and yes, sometimes, a moment of bewilderment in the stillness of life’s ambiguity.

Poets go through life like the rest of us, seeing and feeling what we all see and feel. They, however, put thoughts into words and make them real. Poetry is a window into the soul of both writer and reader. By peering into the writer’s soul we see deeper into our own. We say, “Yes, I’ve felt that too!”.

Some poetry may feel opaque or enigmatic but it can offer the mental challenge of a cryptic crossword. What on earth are they thinking?

Of course poetry doesn’t have to traffic in obscurity or incomprehensibility but simply reflect on love and life.

I have my favorite poets. Some are almost biblical. Browning. Blake. Some are unashamedly biblical. Take David. Man after my own heart. Up and down like a toilet seat at a mixed party. One day he calls God his shepherd and the next day he’s sure God has flown the coop. You can pick from classic poets or contemporary poets. Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver. Robert Burns and Billy Collins. Robert Frost and Michael Ondaatje.

Jean Rhys said that all writing is a lake. We might glance through the newspaper and feel the mist. We might skim a book and wade into the water. Or we might go for a swim and plow through a classic cover to cover. But there is nothing like a quick slug of poetry to quench us when we’re parched. When our heart has been wrung out by the stresses of the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Imaging turning a hospital waiting area into a place where the deep solace of verse could snuff out the flames of despair. A pause that would let the distressed proceed.

It wouldn’t take much. And it wouldn’t take long.