My talk at Holy Redeemer - how does my garden grow / Poem: 302

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

It takes me a good couple of weeks to realize the long cold colorless winter is over and spring is upon the land.

Scott was on vacation for a week so he began planting our vegetable garden. He always wanted to use manure as fertilizer and finally found it, I think at Home Despot. It doesn't smell.
Iris. When I worked as a therapist at Bristol-Bensalem, I bought these at the now-defunct Wankel's Nursery. Therapist Judy Diaz and I reminisce about Wankel's and Bristol-Bensalem which is now a housing development. After I finished grad school, where I got my MGPGP degree, I found a job at BBHSC in six weeks! Unheard of today.
Scott planted this dwarf lilac last year. When you walk past, you can smell the delicate fragrance.
Columbine. Directly behind it, to the L, are my red poppies getting ready to bloom.

No gardening for me, tho, due to the need to remain abstinent for six months following my kidney transplant on April 1.

I am allowed, however, to photograph my garden.

Upon mounting the steps of the Motherhouse, the visitor comes upon a serene inner lobby.

Sister Gerri and I say goodbye after the successful presentation she coordinated.
This drawing of Pope John XXIII by Charles Madden is dedicated to Sister Martina and the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer. Click to enlarge and see inscription.

Although John only served four years (he died in 1963 of stomach cancer) his contributions were enormous. As the Italian Cardinal Roncalli he saved many Jews and others during WW2. He also initiated Vatican 2 which made many changes to the religion.
Here's the Conference Room where I spoke. It was filled with comfortable chairs, all of them filled with interested people. One man, who brought a family member, said he wanted me to speak somewhere in Doylestown. Call me, I said, and I'll be happy to.
Here I am getting ready for my talk. I'm listening - on speakerphone - to a phone message from a new client. I saw her thother day and called to see how she's getting along. Much better!

While eating lunch, which I do at this TV table, I decided to begin my presentation by reading my poem "302." It covers everything, I thought.

Other than that, my talk was totally unplanned. The information is second-nature to me.


3 0 2

The following poem was written when I worked as a psychotherapist at Bristol-Bensalem Human Services in Bristol, PA. “302” is a nickname meaning “involuntary hospitalization.”

I watched
through the glass doors
of our mental health clinic
for the person to be 302d,
he would walk through
the outer doors,
a man who’d lost the
finer workings of his mind,
and would be delivered up
for safekeeping by the cops,
escorted into a tiny room that locked
and was filled with windows
that can’t be broken.

They were wild sometimes,
flailing,
crying out in broken words,
fighting to escape their captors,
believing until the end
deliverance was at hand.

From my perch at the door
the doctor joins me.
She is eating an apple and
talking about going out for
Chinese food after.
302-ing makes you hungry.

I tell her that once
I had ridden
in the back of a police car.
My senses gone,
alert,
radiating to the
staccato points of night
and the babble of the police radio,
I leaned forward in my backseat nest
like caged Hansel in the gingerbread forest
and stuck my little finger
through the iron grates that contained me.
It was all I had of freedom.

“Were you scared?” the doctor asked.
“Why, not at all,” I said.
“I thought they were taking me to a live
performance of the Nutcracker Suite.”

Thinking I was kidding
she crumpled up with merriment.

We watched as a police car
pulled in sideways.
Black letters like ribbons scrolled
across the door.

I watched as
a man stepped from the car,
steady, unafraid,
handsome as a game show host
striding on stage
to marvelous applause.
Barefoot,
his hair uncombed with
great prodigal waves falling upon
his brow,
his face had a pulled-down look
I hadn’t expected to see.
He’d played his chips and lost.

Chin up, I whispered.
This is your hour,
for now --
for all time.
Use it well.
Don’t get hurt,
run a comb through your hair,
And, for God’s sakes, pay attention
with whatever’s left inside you,
for this is the night of your 302.