frankie Posted August 19, 2009 Share Posted August 19, 2009 Hi guys! My problem is this: I had to learn a poem by heart years ago for uni. I loved the poem and I would like to find it again. The problem is I don't remember the poet and I only have the poem's name which is "The Healer". I tried googling but all The Healer poems were religious poems and my poem was not like that. I remember a couple of the lines, they went something like this: Sometimes I think my life's over That there will be repetition But no more story. I also remember the narrator saying something about churchgoers who were passing by, and I think the narrator might have been outside doing something, maybe something to do with flowers? But that's all I have. And those lines produce nothing on google. Anyone got any ideas as to who's poem I'm referring to? I'm dying to find this poem! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted February 13, 2010 Author Share Posted February 13, 2010 Phew, I got it! My friend tracked down the poem using a kind of an Ask a Librarian -service and found out that the poem is indeed The Healer and it's by Margaret Atwood (you would've thought that I would've remembered such a well-known poet...!) and it's found at least in the collection "Interlunar". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirinrob Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 Glad you solved that little mystery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted February 13, 2010 Author Share Posted February 13, 2010 Thanks sirinrob, I had begun to think I'd never know which poem it is. As soon as I get home I'm going to hit the library and borrow the collection Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissy Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 So pleased you found it! It must have been driving you mad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted February 13, 2010 Author Share Posted February 13, 2010 It certainly has! Next week I'm going to get it and then I'm going to post it on this section and make you read it as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissy Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 That would be great, I want to read this poem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted February 16, 2010 Author Share Posted February 16, 2010 Here's finally the poem you have all been waiting for, and which I've tried to hunt down for maybe 5 years! Margaret Atwood: The Healer I do not wish to spend the rest of my time curing nosebleeds over the phone. Nobody here needs anyone raised from the dead, it's too confusing, with the notices already sent and so forth. Asthma and bruises, warts dissolved in moonlight, a touch and it's done. Anything worse and they'll call the doctor. Suffering is boring, though noticing this does not make it end. There are so many other things I could be doing with my hands: digging up the garden, digging up the garden again. Sometimes I think my life is over and there will be repetition but no more story. Only these compassions, which are also minor. I should be elsewhere, away from these neat farms, living among the people in dust-floored shacks who could still believe me. But I am old and lazy now. I know that being sick and being well are states of the soul, though I am losing ground, call it altitude, call it faith. The power is in me, but what for? What am I to do with my hands in this tidy place filled with those who do not want to be truly healed? Such arrogance, to have expected miracles. What was it anyway I thought flowed through me? Perhaps it was only a slight talent, this tinkering with the small breaks and fissures in other bodies, like a knack for crewel-work. Sundays I putter in the yard, arranging stones, raking grass, and the church-goers pass me, radiating their special hatreds. In the evenings I sit on the back porch in a stuffed chair covered with blue cloth printed with flowers, and look out across the ragged fields at the real flowers, goldenrod and purple asters, the light spilling out of them unasked for and unused. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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