For several years I have been submitting a poem, or two, to the annual Friends of the
University of Alberta Hospital poetry contest. The poems are to focus on “hope,
healing, and the hospital experience”. Medical staff, patients, and visitors are
all invited to submit. The selected poems are on display for one year on the
“Poetry Walk” wall on the second floor. The “Poetry Walk” is across from the pedway
to the Kidney Clinic, or straight down the long hall from Diagnostic Imaging or
Dentistry, should you be local to Edmonton, Alberta and some day wish to read the
chosen poems. Though to be honest, I hope you never have occasion to be at the
hospital.

CLICK on photos to enlarge / read.

This year, for the second time, I have one of my poems chosen to be displayed on
the “Poetry Walk” wall. The poems are selected by a panel including hospital staff
and the head of the “Artists on the Ward” program”. The “Artists on the Ward”
program” is dear to my heart. I believe the program staff and volunteers do work
that may be more healing to many patients than any prescription medication or
procedure. A patient may request a visit from an artist to write poetry or stories
together, paint and sketch, or perhaps create or listen to live music.

I discovered the “Poetry Walk” by chance in 2012, when my husband was first a heart
failure inpatient at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, attached to the U of A
hospital. I needed time away from him to collect my thoughts, so I set off on a
walking meditation. As I wandered throughout the hospital, I happened upon the
poetry. I recall reading a poem about a woman who sat vigil by her spouse’s bedside,
knitting. I continued reading the poems. I felt my breath deepening, shoulders and
neck relaxing, mind clearing, as I continued down the row of frames.

In January 2018, my husband returned to the hospital via ambulance, becoming an
inpatient once again. The dilated cardiomyopathy (believed to be viral in cause) now
had him in end-stage heart failure, too ill to wait for transplant. Mechanical
circulatory support via an LVAD to pump for his damaged left ventricle became the
only option to prolong and improve his life. It is not a cure. It is 24 hour, 7 day a
week portable life support; but it is life. He was an inpatient for five weeks.
Again, at times I needed to wander the lengthy halls alone, to find comfort in reading
words on the wall when I could not write my own.

On February 14th, 2018 my husband was to be sent for an echocardiogram. The unit
staff was busy, so I asked to take him in the wheelchair for his echo by myself.
Allowed to remain with him during the ultrasound of his heart, I watched the screen.
I was struck by the realization of what day it was on the calendar, as well as what
I was observing.

Almost one year later on January 31, 2019 I wrote “On Valentine’s Day” which will
be on the “Poetry Wall” until 2020. It was my Valentine to Mr. Wanton this year:

Is it the best poem I’ve ever written? It is not. I don’t like that the poem is
“telling”; I should be “showing” (my writer friends know exactly what I mean).
But poetry is subjective – people like what they like – and for whatever reason, this
year the jury selected it. Though the poem is far from my “best”, I hope it might
bring comfort some day, in some way, to some other wanderer.