by Pamela Heinrich MacPherson
Red Barn Books
Shelburne, VT 05482
Copyright 2015
ISBN: 9781935922964
The collection’s
title, as Pamela Heinrich MacPherson says in her introduction, comes from the
“Latin, viglio, ‘to be awake,’ be vigilant; a period of watchful attention;
wakefulness that holds calm; bearing quiet witness." The poems were
produced from her diary entries accumulated over 30 decades of sitting in vigil
with the dying. She was drawn to end-of-life issues while in nursing school in
the 60s and eventually would serve as Hospice Volunteer Coordinator for the
Visiting Nurse Association of Chittenden and Grand Isle Counties in Vermont
between 1988 and 2004. She has continued to sit in vigil following her
retirement.
These poems have
an artistic innocence; they are what she wrote in the moment and their meaning and
much of their power comes from that immediacy; they do not seem to have been
worked on, shaped or changed in search of meaning. Here are a two examples the
first is a good description of what, in my experience, the approach of death
may look like.
Endings and
Beginnings
Cold hands
Mottled on their
undersides.
As you
rhythmically breathe
Your seven breaths
Ascend and descend
And then give way
to
Thirty seconds of
apnea,
A transition
Not unlike labor
and birth.
The intervals of
labor
Grow shorter with
each contraction;
The intervals
between breaths
Grow longer in
dying.
This second example should disabuse
you of the notion that the process is always peaceful:
Nothing Dignified
There is nothing
dignified
About teeth being
out,
The urgency of a
bowel movement,
Flatulence
released,
Ecchymotic hands
that are
The extension of
tissue paper arms.
The poems are not
arranged chronologically but in nine thematic chapters. One is devoted to
"Quality of Care," which has a poem, "Mediocre," that begins
with these lines:
"Mediocre…
A level of nursing
care
Not without polite
exchanges
Or meeting basic
needs.
However,
Absent was a
lingering touch that knows.
Mediocre care can be compounded by
indifferent or unaware families as "Care: Acceptance on My Part"
illustrates. Pam arrives to sit with a woman who is,
Tiny and frail and
barely a shadow of who she was,
This
nonagenarian's petite features
Are immersed
deeply in somnolence.
The woman has discolored hands,
which "tell of medical misfortune." She then discovers the woman has
a swollen arm because of a leaking IV. With some difficulty she is able to get
a nurse to inspect the patient.
He arrives in the
room,
Examines her arm
and intravenous site.
"Another must
be placed," he announces.
"Her family
wants it," he defends…
The sentence is
hard for me to hear;
My heart
questions.
Her family? What
about her wishes?
That question, "What about her
wishes?" Is an example of the utilitarian importance of these poems; take
heed to be sure that your wishes are known.
These
poems are strongest when they are detailed and specific. My reservations (I
always have my reservations – in spite of all the Robert
Frost I have memorized I still think some of his poetry is flat) are for
the times when they stray from the particulars and a good poem ends with lines
of greeting card verse such as these, "May your soul have a gentle landing/In
a peaceful place of contentment." But, if you will ignore those lines, Vigil the Poetry of Presence will serve
you well; the wisdom these poems share should be of use to all of us when we support
family and friends as they are dying and we can only hope that our family and
friends will have access to their wisdom by the time we need their support as
we begin our near death experience.
By Wendell Smith MD, ret.
