The Quiet Doctor of Palma

Dr Toni Obrador (1950-2006)

“Of every friendless name the friend”

Johnson ‘On the Death of Dr Robert Levet’

I suppose that death felt proud,

and congratulated himself

on having this doctor in his sights.

He brought up the heavy artillery too, cancer,

and thought he was getting his own back,

on an antagonist who had thwarted him,

time and time again.

Had this man cringed, head down, beaten,

in a corner cowering,

waiting for the blow,

death might have boasted then,

but he worked quietly on,

went to his hospital daily,

and took care of his patients there.

He made death wait,

made death wait out in the corridor,

while he gently invited his patients in, one by one.

And then when he had done,

there was no drama.

He gave him a day and an hour at the end of the year,

without complaint, ungrudgingly.

Patients, articles, congresses,

all at an end now, all gone,

the last appointment done.

Poem every Monday