At the Cancer Clinic

Ted Kooser

(1939 - )

This is a good example of why I am so drawn to Ted Kooser's poetry. I am 75 and an increasing number of friends and family are spending time in cancer clinics and they report what is at the core of this poem - people being kind to one another just when kindness is needed most. "Grace fills the clean mold of this moment and all the shuffling magazines grow still." This in recognition of the courage and kindness being demonstrated.

At the Cancer Clinic

She is being helped toward the open door

that leads to the examining rooms

by two young women I take to be her sisters.

Each bends to the weight of an arm

and steps with the straight, tough bearing

of courage. At what must seem to be

a great distance, a nurse holds the door,

smiling and calling encouragement.

How patient she is in the crisp white sails

of her clothes. The sick woman

peers from under her funny knit cap

to watch each foot swing scuffing forward

and take its turn under her weight.

There is no restlessness or impatience

or anger anywhere in sight. Grace

fills the clean mold of this moment

and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

Have a listen to the poem being recited.

Theodore J. Kooser is an American poet. He won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2005. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006. Kooser was one of the first poets laureate selected from the Great Plains, and is known for his conversational style of poetry.