Donald Hall: The Ship Pounding
The Ship Pounding
Each morning I made my way
among gangways, elevators,
and nurses’ pods to Jane’s room
to interrogate the grave helpers
who tended her through the night
while the ship’s massive engines
kept its propellers turning.
Week after week, I sat by her bed
with black coffee and the Globe.
The passengers on this voyage
wore masks or cannulae
or dangled devices that dripped
chemicals into their wrists.
I believed that the ship
traveled to a harbor
of breakfast, work, and love.
I wrote: "When the infusions
are infused entirely, bone
marrow restored and lymphoblasts
remitted, I will take my wife,
bald as Michael Jordan,
back to our dog and day." Today,
months later at home, these
words turned up on my desk
as I listened in case Jane called
for help, or spoke in delirium,
ready to make the agitated
drive to Emergency again
for readmission to the huge
vessel that heaves water month
after month, without leaving
port, without moving a knot,
without arrival or destination,
its great engines pounding.
Discussion Questions
How does the hospital feel like a “ship pounding”?
How have you experienced the “grind” of the hospital the way Hall describes it in his poem?
How does your experience of the hospital relate to Hall’s portrayal of the hospital? What do you think these characteristics say about hospitals as an institution? How has this experience changed over time?
Reflections from #MedHumChat
“A hospital, like a ship, is its own isolated world away from the rest of society. There are physical forces that exert against us that we can't control and our hearts lurch in response. We feel at the mercy of those forces sometimes but try to stay steady.”—@alinasato
“The "ship pounding" strikes me as a metaphor of striving, pounding forward to ease suffering and restore health, and yet like a ship, the hospital itself is a small vessel compared to the magnitude of illness and suffering.”—@Indrani_Das201
“Hospitals can feel like an unrelenting machine, “heaving water month after month,” but each “passenger” carries her individual list of losses. I have a duty to attune to and respect that particularity every time I board the ship.”—@anoushkaasinha
About this #MedHumChat
“The Ship Pounding” was paired with “Things My Daughter Lost in Hospitals,” a poem by Toni L. Wilkes for a #MedHumChat discussion October 16, 2019 exploring The Hospital.
We were honored to be joined by two special guests, Suzanne Koven and Hui-wen Sato. Suzanne Koven (@SuzanneKovenMD) is a primary care physician and Writer in Residence at Massachusetts General Hospital. Hui-wen Sato (@alinasato) is a writer and pediatric ICU nurse at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
The pieces for this chat, along with the discussions questions, were selected by Mary Pan.
About the Author
Donald Hall (1928 - 2018) was a poet, author and teacher whose writing often reflected his reverence for nature and the countryside. A cancer survivor himself, Hall lost his wife Jane Kenyon to leukemia just over a year after she was given the diagnosis. Kenyon’s death had a profound effect on Hall, and he documented his loss in both his poetry and prose. You can learn more about him here.