the call

"The modes of vibration associated
with resonance in extended objects
have characteristic patterns called standing waves;
these are characterized by nodal positions -
points of no displacement."
-- true physics fact

the hospital is shaped like a flower,
and my bed is tucked away in one petal.
i'm only one person. i'm only here for one night.
i'm on call, and i lie down on my bed.
i'm on call and i pray, and i call on somebody,
some spirit i know. she's actual size,
but she seems much bigger to me.
the beads are clear glass and faceted,
one by one a prayer, and so.
the main thing is,
i don't want anyone to die tonight.



like a standing wave she moves through the halls.
she passes through the ICU nurses
who sit in the near-dark, in a row, watching the monitors.
they talk quietly to each other, shoulder to shoulder,
watching. into the darkened glass rooms,
she washes like a wave across the damp brow
of the woman with AIDS, over the swollen belly
of the man with cirrhosis. her breath

is the sigh of mechanical ventilators;
the hearts keep beating. she flows into the orthopedic unit,
all those red-hot sawn-up hips and knees, those shiny metal
torture devices, and her presence fills the air,
anesthetizes and sedates; patients
sleep without stirring.

like a standing wave, she moves through labor and delivery,
where sleepy nurses sit side by side, watching the monitors,
and pregnant ladies, numb from the waist down,
doze in their dark rooms
until morning. she passes like a wave through the NICU
with its plexiglass boxes of tiny red babies
covered with soft blankets, ventilators and feeding pumps
purring and ticking away in the dark. she washes over
the furrowed brows of the nurses, their tired eyes. she

cools them. she flows
through the medical units one by one,
filling the hallways with deep good air.
the demented and delerious
snore delicately. the bleeding stop bleeding
and start dreaming. blood sugars

and temperatures gently rise and fall,
bladders and bellies gently fill and accomodate;
everybody sleeps. even the nervous hospitalists
sleep quietly, wrapped in their thin blankets.
she fills the halls with a thin cool clarity,

an air of slow, and quiet, and calm, and pain-free.
in the emergency room, no emergencies; a sudoku book
lies open on a table; the coffeepot cools; relaxed
security guards sit around joking
with sweet-faced nurses;
she fills the hospital.
in the basement,

in the lab, the sleepy tech
smiles at an inconsequential website.
the cultures bloom. the bottles rest in orderly rows.
the phone is quiet. she fills the hospital

and the tired patients sleep.
the hallways are clean and empty and dim.
she fills the hospital.
nobody dies.

asking the hard questions

hard questions, courtesy of the internets. decorations by ryan north of qwantz dot com



Am I a genius?
Is growth good for the poor?
What can be done to foster a durable peace?
If an autonomous robot kills someone, whose fault is it?
Am I doing it for the good of my child, or for my own good?
Do enhanced interrogation techniques prevent terrorist attacks?
Will increased online policing divert resources from offline policing?
Why is it easier to fill training slots in surgical specialties than in primary care?
If advice and assistance is to be our future, do we need to professionalize that capability?



How far can an artistic approach actually influence the practice of science?
What role does the CIA play in the training and arming of terrorists?
How can I explain God stripping the Land clean of Canaanites?
How did the Russians lose track of the descending spacecraft?
Do I have the necessary skills to support the inserted code?
Do I have to believe in the treatment before it can work?
What negative qualities can I identify in myself?
What would I force my spouse to do?
Will I have children, and when?
Why did I buy so much stuff?
Is Sarah Palin a feminist?
Where will it all end?



What are my special gifts?
Do I want a straight shooter or not?
Can there be government without coersion?
How much of a movement is the labor movement?
Should school children memorize and recite poems?
Is software intellectual property or public knowledge?
Whom did we beat? How much did it cost to beat them?
How did these gibbering numbskulls get to where they are?
How do I first tell my child he has a neuromuscular disease?
Why should my country not support an international court of justice?
Can capitalism remain the central organizing principle in the 21st century?
Why isn't God telling me a normal story with a beginning, a middle and an end?



Did the fund managers know that markets were going down?
If US can bomb Pakistan's territory, what stops India?
What is the right way to stop the rocket attacks?
Where is my faith and in what or in whom?
Why aren't we paying for prevention?
Is there anyone I need to forgive?
How much bang for each buck?
Will I have enough time?
Do I really have cancer?
Have we gone too far?
Why am I still fat?
What if a criminal had a dog, and I trusted the dog, but then, because he was a criminal's dog, the dog attacked me and killed me, how do I know God's not like that?