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The Clearing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

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Abstract

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Columns
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017 

Dawn after clerking overdoses,
in the night, we paused the pouring
of grief to let thunder pass
until we could hear
the rain fall and fall again.
I could have been a deer
on the edge of a clearing,
senses so keen I was trembling.
A soil loosed scent rushed
me and the sky was too big to pretend.
The truth is I am as damned
and blessed as them, would be mad
to say other, though my notes
are a different telling.
In my night, I made a story
of that night and cried
that I catch this self so seldom,
Its bronze back dipping into the trees.
Somehow, I stitched the listening wound
and pulled myself up the stairs
to the blue light of your body.

© Daniel Racey, reproduced with permission.

The poem received a Commendation in the 2014 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

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