'The one imperative': Thanking our healthcare workers
The staff and board of Australian Book Review extend their thanks to healthcare workers around the world. We all know what risks confront doctors, nurses, aides, orderlies, and administrative staff in our hospitals and medical clinics, especially here in Victoria. Countless healthcare workers have been infected with Covid-19, and many have died. We’re immensely grateful to the sector for its commitment and self-sacrifice.
Good doctors and good poets
share a calling
that seems to be the only one
in life.
Both see the world as beautifully
appalling,
the inhabitants survivors of its
strife.
Each starts off with a discipline
so daunting
it seems that no one will survive
the test.
Failed fellows will surround them
with a haunting
that lasts all life like an
unwanted guest.
The lives of a myriad ‘poets’
will be saved
while tens of the truly talented
expire.
Battalions of banality be
braved
before the psyche’s surge begins
to tire.
But at the end, whether by pen
or knife,
they know the one imperative
is Life.
‘Sonnet for Dr Michael Kennedy’ by Bruce Beaver