The Medic

The Medic He is calculated in measure and rhythm, In words without rhymes, For he is a medic and he is the ink pen That silences death’s toll in time. He never speaks, in its solemn sobriety And his beauty rises to my pulse Like the epiphany of a sonnet, Or the sonata of a piano Until, at last, a shard of his sanctuary Unfolds within the fields, row on row, He is an infantry medic, and I am young, And he is healing it, that I may go. For I am its exercise, and its pain, The gripping jagged edge knife Lead into the conviction that I may train.