A growing number of reports suggest that clinicians are often unaware of the importance of spirituality to patients; in many cases, these reports also show that physicians may conceal their own beliefs for fear of imposing them on patients. Poetry, with its ties to incantation and prayer, can provide a needed bridge for spiritual engagement between patients and physicians. In “House Call,” the speaker of the poem visits a patient at home, experiencing firsthand how spirituality informs her life as she contends with pulmonary disease, anxiety, and dementia. His keen clinical eye first notes clues to her corporeal illnesses: an empty beer can filled with stubbed-out cigarettes, the clutter of papers and pill bottles obscuring a piano’s surface. Closer, poetic observation soon reveals that she is a gospel pianist who can no longer attend services, and that she fears her absence will be perceived by both God and her church as “a lapse of faith.” As he teaches her more effective inhaler use, the act of ministering to another awakens in him the realization that he had never attended to her spiritual needs, which in their neglect likely contributed to her worsening unease and, in turn, worsening of her pulmonary symptoms. The richness of this epiphany in their newly discovered shared sense of spirituality becomes manifest, ironically, in what the speaker can now appreciate ever more clearly: that he is like Bartimaeus, the blind man whose sight was restored by Jesus in the familiar biblical story, “finally seeing after so many years.”
Floriography, the study of the symbolic meaning of flowers historically and across cultures, reveals that flowers are a universal symbol of love and healing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, recent scientific studies confirm that hospitalized patients given flowers or plants experience measurable health benefits. In poetry, the rose especially is a recurring symbol of love, featuring prominently in the canonical work of the likes of Sappho, Shakespeare, and Stein. In “The Roses,” we both admire this floral symbol and witness its healing properties. The speaker, at first impersonally “part of a home health care company,” provides rehabilitative services to an older woman in a nursing facility who reminds him of his grandmother. Vivid details soon evoke a more caring relationship that extends beyond rehabilitation—the patient confuses him with her grandson, while he finds in her his own grandmother’s “familiar tenderness & prolonged drawl.” His growing compassion is then expressed in tending to her roses at home, which she anxiously asks him to check on. When he discovers them dead, the speaker replaces them with new plants and, just as he cares for her, ensures they are properly tended: “That way,/I could say…as the day came she could not leave her bed,/they are doing alright.” When she finally dies, his grief overflows, as “all I could think about—/& all I can see for a block after passing that house—/was…the deep, deep red of those roses.” Thus, the thriving roses symbolize not just enduring love, but healing.
