Gaudeamus Igitur by John Stone

For this is the day of joy

      which has been fourteen hundred and sixty days in coming

      and fourteen hundred and fifty-nine nights

For today in the breathing name of Brahms

      and the cat of Christopher Smart

      through the unbroken line of language and all the nouns

      stored in the angular gyrus

      today is a commencing

For this is the day you know too little

      against the day when you will know too much

For you will be invincible

      and vulnerable in the same breath

      which is the breath of your patients

For their breath is our breathing and our reason

For the patient will know the answer

      and you will ask him

      ask her

For the family may know the answer

For there may be no answer

      and you will know too little again

      or there will be an answer and you will know too much

      forever

For you will look smart and feel ignorant

      and the patient will not know which day it is for you

      and you will pretend to be smart out of ignorance

For you must fear ignorance more than cyanosis

For whole days will move in the direction of rain

For you will cry and there will be no one to talk to

      or no one but yourself

For you will be lonely

For you will be alone

For there is a difference

For there is no seriousness like joy

For there is no joy like seriousness

For the days will run together in gallops and the years

      go by as fast as the speed of thought

      which is faster than the speed of light

      or Superman

      or Superwoman

For you will not be Superman

For you will not be Superwoman

For you will not be Solomon

      but you will be asked the question nevertheless *

For after you learn what to do, how and when to do it

      the question will be whether

For there will be addictions: whiskey, tobacco, love

For they will be difficult to cure

For you yourself will pass the kidney stone of pain

      and be joyful

For this is the end of examinations

For this is the beginning of testing

For Death will give the final examination

      and everyone will pass

For the sun is always right on time

      and even that may be reason for a kind of joy

For there are all kinds of

      all degrees of joy

For love is the highest joy

For which reason the best hospital is a house of joy

      even with rooms of pain and loss

      exits of misunderstanding

For there is the mortar of faith

For it helps to believe

For Mozart can heal and no one knows where he is buried

For penicillin can heal

      and the word

      and the knife

For the placebo will work and you will think you know why

For the placebo will have side effects and you will know

      you do not know why

For none of these may heal

For joy is nothing if not mysterious

For your patients will test you for spleen

      and for the four humors

For they will know the answer

For they have the disease

For disease will peer up over the hedge

      of health, with only its eyes showing

For the T waves will be peaked and you will not know why

For there will be computers

For there will be hard data and they will be hard

      to understand

For the trivial will trap you and the important escape you

For the Committee will be unable to resolve the question

For there will be the arts

      and some will call them

      soft data

      whereas in fact they are the hard data

      by which our lives are lived

For everyone comes to the arts too late

For you can be trained to listen only for the oboe

      out of the whole orchestra

For you may need to strain to hear the voice of the patient

      in the thin reed of his crying

For you will learn to see most acutely out of

      the corner of your eye

      to hear best with your inner ear

For there are late signs and early signs

For the patient's story will come to you

      like hunger, like thirst

For you will know the answer

      like second nature, like first

For the patient will live

      and you will try to understand

For you will be amazed

      or the patient will not live

      and you will try to understand

For you will be baffled

For you will try to explain both, either, to the family

For there will be laying on of hands

      and the letting go

For love is what death would always intend if it had the choice

For the fever will drop, the bone remold along

its lines of force

      the speech return

      the mind remember itself

For there will be days of joy

For there will be elevators of elation

      and you will walk triumphantly

      in purest joy

      along the halls of the hospital

      and say Yes to all the dark corners

      where no one is listening

For the heart will lead

For the head will explain

      but the final common pathway is the heart

      whatever kingdom may come

For what matters finally is how the human spirit is spent

For this is the day of joy

For this is the morning to rejoice

For this is the beginning

      Therefore, let us rejoice

      Gaudeamus igitur.

 *1 Kings 3:16-27

Published on Tuesday Poem with permission of John Stone’s widow, Mae Nelson Stone. Gaudeamus Igitur appeared in his last book of poems, "Music from Apartment 8: New and Selected Poems" published in 2004 by LSU Press.

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                                                                   Editor, Renee Liang

I first came across this thought-provoking poem when an extract was read at a gathering of doctors, before finding it again on Nancy Simpson’s informative blog. When I found that its author, John Stone, came (like me) from the dual worlds of poetry and medicine, I was hooked. I started tracking down his books.

Reading and hearing this poem, written for the 1982 commencement ceremony of Emory University’s School of Medicine, I have little explosions of recognition.  At the time I graduated from medical school, I wouldn’t have understood lines like “For whole days will move in the direction of rain” and “For joy is nothing if not mysterious.”  But now I do. 

John Stone understood the closeness of medicine to poetry. He uses poetry to express the world of the doctor – an uncertain human being, called to show certainty and strength to the sick. One of the hardest – and easiest -- things about becoming a doctor is learning to doubt yourself. Experienced clinicians will say that doubt is often what saves them.  To the young, it’s the thing they most want to avoid.

This is where learning in the arts helps me.  In the arts, I think, we often work by instinct – moving in a direction that feels right. Of course we take care to do our research and hone our technical skills – but how often have we found a solution by ‘feel’? I think this is what Stone means when he writes,

For you can be trained to listen only for the oboe

      out of the whole orchestra

- there’s an instinct which can be honed, not through textbooks, but only through experience. There’s always that doubt – will we find anything to ‘hear’ at all? - but we keep going anyway.  And when we find it, there’s often still that ambivalence of meaning, the same ambivalence that brings us so much pleasure in reading and writing poetry.  Doubt can be a strength, after all.

John Stone (1936-2008), physician-poet, was an emeritus professor of medicine in cardiology at Emory University.  He also taught English Literature and Medicine at Emory and at Oxford University, England. He won numerous awards in both medicine and poetry.

Stone’s poetry collections include The Smell of Matches (1972), In All This Rain (1980), Renaming the Streets (1985), Where Water Begins: New Poems and Prose (1998), and Music From Apartment 8: New and Selected Poems (2004). In 1990 Dell published In the Country of Hearts: Journeys in the Art of Medicine, a collection of essays about the human heart, both as a physiological organ and a metaphorical symbol of life and emotion.

 

This week's Tuesday Poem editor Renee Liang is an Auckland poet, playwright and paediatrician. She writes and tours plays, with 'The First Asian AB' performed in Hamilton this year. Her poetry and other writing can be found on her blog Chinglish. 


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