Poetry: “What The Doctor Said” by Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988)

When I picked up Raymond Carver’s wonderful poetry book, “All of Us – The Collected Poems”, it opened at this poem…

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What The Doctor Said by Raymond Carver

He said it doesn’t look good
he said it looks bad in fact real bad
he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before
I quit counting them
I said I’m glad I wouldn’t want to know
about any more being there than that
he said are you a religious man do you kneel down
in forest groves and let yourself ask for help
when you come to a waterfall
mist blowing against your face and arms
do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments
I said not yet but I intend to start today
he said I’m real sorry he said
I wish I had some other kind of news to give you
I said Amen and he said something else
I didn’t catch and not knowing what else to do
and not wanting him to have to repeat it
and me to have to fully digest it
I just looked at him
for a minute and he looked back it was then
I jumped up and shook hands with this man who’d just given me
something no one else on earth had ever given me
I may have even thanked him habit being so strong

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Raymond Carver, American poet and short story writer  (a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s), died from lung cancer when only 50.

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Thanks to Betty Londergan for suggesting I read Raymond Carver’s poetry.