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OtherReflections in Family Medicine

Poetry in a Pill

Adam O. Goldstein
The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine July 2014, 27 (4) 575; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3122/jabfm.2014.04.130132
Adam O. Goldstein
From the Department of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill.
MD, MPH
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  • Poetry
  • Prescribing Patterns
  • Physician

Today they announced discovery

of poetry in a pill form.

Take one 3 times a day,

no prescription needed.

Those around me greeted the news

almost impassively,

as if a new species had arrived

with little fanfare,

and only a few muted smiles.

The reality eventually took hold,

as recognition that a long-sought marriage

had occurred, uniting disciplines and theory,

aspirations and ability,

onto a common path where

breakthroughs are not inevitable,

but result from continuous creativity.

We greet new pills for sleep with praise,

new pills for hearts with awe,

new pills for pain with relief,

new pills for pleasure with excitement.

How then should we greet this,

the first pill for the soul?

What emotion do we have

to acknowledge prolonged insight

into the nature of existence?

As we swallow this pill,

we marvel in the exhalation of voices

that resonate through centuries,

in caves, palaces, and prisons,

in prose, psalms, and stories,

in words jumping off rocks,

in the power that radiates

from the pen and from the mind

unleashed from rules.

This is the thought that exhorts us,

the thought that, like Sisyphus, is never enough

and pushes us harder, higher, and faster,

to converse inside a space

as powerful at this moment

as the universe above and below,

formed at the dawn of creation:

Two millennia of research

into the nature of the soul

have finally brought art and science together,

with millions of new inspirations,

visions that link faith and science

and faith.

Notes

  • This article was externally peer reviewed.

  • Funding: none.

  • Conflict of interest: none declared.

  • Received for publication April 25, 2013.
  • Revision received March 19, 2014.
  • Accepted for publication April 21, 2014.
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The Journal of the American Board of Family     Medicine: 27 (4)
The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine
Vol. 27, Issue 4
July-August 2014
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Poetry in a Pill
Adam O. Goldstein
The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine Jul 2014, 27 (4) 575; DOI: 10.3122/jabfm.2014.04.130132

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Poetry in a Pill
Adam O. Goldstein
The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine Jul 2014, 27 (4) 575; DOI: 10.3122/jabfm.2014.04.130132
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