Lear as an Aging Musician
Your hyponthenar eminence is thin--
Your elbow hurts. You've been
exercising without support. Sun's
not setting yet, my dear; it's ulnar.
I've been saying such for months.
Hand, wobbly as an unstable moon
less than a nano light-second away
from a saturnine planet, my face,
Age is like dark energy: gnarled digits
tremble, obeying an unseen force
no one really understands. Old man,
(by the way, your handwriting sucks),
don't be afraid of that approaching star--
It's not a gas giant; nor is it God;
as Buddha taught, it's not like
anything else. Non-legato sounds--
You never trilled like that before. Life!
Did Lear expect a perpetuum mobile
composed by a bloodless neutrinio?
Play on, play one, while you can. Still,
still: sometimes I feel like an orphan
in a decomposing rocket
hurtling toward a quiet place--
Eternal spring? It's about to explode.:
Thomas Dorsett
Notes: this poem was recentlty published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA, October 24/31, 2017, Vol. 318, Number 16).
The first stanza needs some explaining for a non-medical audience. While I was playing the piano, I noticed a tremor in the third and fourth fingers of each hand. I thought sure I had multiple sclerosis. I went to the neurologist, who informed me that I had been doing too much weight lifting without protection. The hypothenar eminence is the ridge along the palm beneath the fifth finger. It carries the ulnar nerve which enervates the fourth and fight fingers. Mine was a bit wasted due to too much exercise. It was not multiple sclerosis; the tremor was due to chronic irritation of the ulnar nerve. (The ulnar nerve is most vulnerable at the so-called "funny bone," the inner area of the elbow.)
Question: in the last line, is it the rocket about to explode or spring? Or both? I leave the answer to that question to the reader.
Your hyponthenar eminence is thin--
Your elbow hurts. You've been
exercising without support. Sun's
not setting yet, my dear; it's ulnar.
I've been saying such for months.
Hand, wobbly as an unstable moon
less than a nano light-second away
from a saturnine planet, my face,
Age is like dark energy: gnarled digits
tremble, obeying an unseen force
no one really understands. Old man,
(by the way, your handwriting sucks),
don't be afraid of that approaching star--
It's not a gas giant; nor is it God;
as Buddha taught, it's not like
anything else. Non-legato sounds--
You never trilled like that before. Life!
Did Lear expect a perpetuum mobile
composed by a bloodless neutrinio?
Play on, play one, while you can. Still,
still: sometimes I feel like an orphan
in a decomposing rocket
hurtling toward a quiet place--
Eternal spring? It's about to explode.:
Thomas Dorsett
Notes: this poem was recentlty published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA, October 24/31, 2017, Vol. 318, Number 16).
The first stanza needs some explaining for a non-medical audience. While I was playing the piano, I noticed a tremor in the third and fourth fingers of each hand. I thought sure I had multiple sclerosis. I went to the neurologist, who informed me that I had been doing too much weight lifting without protection. The hypothenar eminence is the ridge along the palm beneath the fifth finger. It carries the ulnar nerve which enervates the fourth and fight fingers. Mine was a bit wasted due to too much exercise. It was not multiple sclerosis; the tremor was due to chronic irritation of the ulnar nerve. (The ulnar nerve is most vulnerable at the so-called "funny bone," the inner area of the elbow.)
Question: in the last line, is it the rocket about to explode or spring? Or both? I leave the answer to that question to the reader.
