Pursuing the Via Claudia Augusta to Italy

From Augsburg we ride in convoy south

guided by maps and cryptic words

with logos and arrows discovered on posts,

pedalling down gravelly tracks

and smooth sealed cycle paths,

then onto the bounce and bob

of cobbles and stones

with one eye grounded and one

free to roam the drifting scenes.

Here we path-find beside a stumbling

grey milk river, the full flow showing

that rain preceded our spell

of bright and blue,

past hard graft stone walls

and the soft of sunflower fields,

the pink and red of window boxes.

We try to not get too hung up by

crucifixes that abound in fields and towns

and onion-topped churches with their

garish murals, beautiful and horrific,

preferring the toll of bell-clangs

that dong the hour along,

marvelling at the faith and fears of

those who built castles on rocky crags

overlooking fertile valleys

that we are not the first to invade.

This was a via of empire expansion

and for us, new horizons

as we cycle past vast orchards

with regimented rows of apple trees

upright as Roman columns,

under massive granite brows that frown

on our straggled caravan

as these mountains would have towered

over foot-sore soldiers of that

ancient empire, over men who had

no coffee, ice cream or strudel,

nor green arrows on posts to guide them.

Poetry and Medicine XIII: Author unknown

Metaphors for Resilience

I learnt this short poem at school, and although I can still recite it from memory, I have no idea of its title or who wrote it. If anyone can tell me more about it, I would be delighted to know, as the poem has occupied a nook in my mind all my life, contributing to my early appreciation of poetry and my concept of resilience.

I see it as a statement of defiance in the face of forces which wear down, demoralise and destroy.

O do not let the restless sea

The rub and scrub of the wave,

Scour me out and cover me

With sand in a shallow grave.

But may my image like a rock

Scornful of the tide’s attack,

Shift no inch at the green shock

And glisten as the wave springs back.

The even line length, regular rhythm and predictable rhyme pattern make this type of poem, like the lyrics of a song, easier to remember.

Read it aloud, and note the even flow of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. Yet in the second-to-last line this rhythm is suddenly disrupted, as though something has struck. Reading aloud also helps the reader to appreciate the repetition of sounds – the hissing of ‘s’s at the end of the first line suggesting the sound of waves, the rhyming within a line of ‘rub’ and ‘scrub,’ the repeated ‘m’s in the fifth line and the ‘sh’ sounds in the seventh line.

The words ‘let’ and ‘may’ in the first lines of each stanza are very similar in meaning, but using ‘let’ sounds better alongside ‘restless,’ whereas ‘may’ in the second stanza is phonetically more compatible with ‘my image’ which follows. When a poet selects words which sound as though they belong together, the result is more musical and aesthetically pleasing, like colours that blend well together in a painting.

The main strength in this poem lies in the metaphors. The scouring effect of a restless sea can be seen as a metaphor for anything that steadily grinds us down, such as the constant burden of endless patient need, and working in a health system badly in need of reform. When we talk of burnout in our workforce, we are using a different metaphor, or figure of speech, for the same thing. Becoming slowly buried in sand, and the image of a shallow grave, convey a sense of being terminally overwhelmed.

But the second stanza is far more positive. The narrator is drawn to the image or metaphor of a rock, standing unmoved as the force of each wave’s assault is absorbed, confidently glistening as it springs back.

Blue sky black rocks

Although the blue sky lured me out

riding around Lyall Bay

I found the winding black road shaded

from a low-slung northern sun,

grateful that a passing ute

broke the law on my behalf

to swerve over the double yellow

lines and give me width.

Out in the flat of Cook Strait

the inter-island ferry snails past

a confident red tug boat

hauling a stricken ship back

into harbour, past jagged black rocks

in shore, snow topping the backdrop range.

Kia tūpato is signed at Moa Point

where little blue penguins may cross,

just as my Nana Mae would warn

us to take care, her wide serene face

forever denying the shame

of chosen death by drowning,

a troubled husband without a tug,

lost overboard while crossing

this cold beguiling strait,

a nervous farmer in indifferent health

on his way to therapy at Hanmer.