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Somerville Bagel Bards member and physician-humanist, Ian Halim, writes about how medicine relates to everything from ethics to botany, aiming to make science accessible to the widest possible audience. Ian earned his PhD in Greek and Latin literature and his MD at Columbia University in New York City and is now training at a hospital in Boston.

RAIN’S REMEMBRANCE

Ian Halim

One day, I was checking out a lady,
from my supermarket register,
needle-fine slanting rain
splashing tiny splashes beyond wide panes.

“Downcast by the weather,” she told me.
“Think of your best rain memory,” I urged.
“You should be a therapist,” she left me,
in plain-spoken thanks.

Often when it drizzles, my mind turns
to a day particular—
rain’s remembrance.

Three hiking together, pausing,
lunching by a lake
rising up, jackets crinkling wet,
water darts percussing as we went                                 

The island of green was ours alone—
sweet retreat from machines and screens,
from contests and conquests—
from posturing and vaunting,
for that day—
walking along brooks,
chatting about this and that,
cutting a temple with our feet
into time’s cold stone blocks.

“Disgusting” they say,
“rough weather,” one groans.
They dread the storm drain rivers—
hazards for pretty city feet,
the sodden hours in ice-blown offices,
skeletal umbrellas haunting the concrete…

My memory sings instead—
the sky’s gift
for the black cracked earth
transparent liquor-treasure—aquavit
feeding green sugar-makers,
swelling turgid fungi
drenching water-lucky land

That day, we walked upon it
a quiet joy running off of us,
mud-drunk
life-giving clear liquid
flowing.

Often, when it rains,
I think of it.

— Ian Halim

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