This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Humanities  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

JAMA. 2009;301(24):2532.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 113 words of the full text and any section headings.

The thing about growing older
is that nobody says your name
for weeks. Nothing happens
if you don't get out of bed, don’t
take the air, don't shop for bread
or shoes. No one will stop to ask,
"Where is so-and-so?" or observe
footprints never left in the snow,
the snow unshoveled, the class untaught.

You are home pouring coffee,
working silently at your table,
uncubicled. You notice things.
The hydrangeas are enormous. A cobweb
hangs over the lamp. You are your own
museum piece, dusting yourself,
listening for birdsong, breath and heartbeat,
standing still enough to watch motes
loiter in a sunny window, to hear
the rain falling like a silver miracle.

Donna Pucciani
Wheaton, Illinois
dpucciani@yahoo.com

Poetry and Medicine Section Editor: Charlene Breedlove, Associate Editor. Poems may be submitted to jamapoems@jama-archives.org.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?