Category: Uncategorized
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Elms lining a street in Detroit. Source: detroityes.com In considering the national debate and attention to human immigrants to the US, I took a step back to think about immigration writ large. What about flora and fauna immigration? What about the migration of the continents of our planet? Out of those larger perspectives came this…
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Living along the Huron River we often see snapping turtles and Eastern box turtles when kayaking in the river. After mating in the spring the females seek a place to lay and bury their eggs – in June in this area. Last June a large snapping turtle Mama crawled out of the river, traversed busy…
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New classes of medical students will soon be arriving in our nation’s medical schools. It makes me reflect on my experiences and to examine some of the poems I wrote during that time. Here is a sampling of three that were written in 1981-1983. Two are short little musings that I wrote while feeling overwhelmed…
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We have spent at least a week of the summer in Leelanau County, Michigan for the past 30 years, staying at a place called Fountain Point – an historic property with a white clapboard, red-roofed old hotel building with surrounding cottages. It is a place where we seek relaxation, reconnection with family and friends, and…
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I remember our last “big” US anniversary – the bicentennial in 1976. I was a graduating high school senior, and we were proud to be the bicentennial class. I’ve been thinking a lot about how our nation has changed in the past 50 years. There are many advances, many positives, but also some aspects of…
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Being from Upstate New York and accustomed to the natural beauty of that region, it took me a while to embrace Michigan and all its wonders. Of course with Detroit as the center of the automotive industry, Michiganders explore the state in their vehicles, and for good reason. The variety of landscapes, terra firma and…
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When I was in medical school my shared apartment was in a complex that had many large cottonwood trees (genus Populus). Each June they would carpet the ground with their white fluffy seeds, sometimes to a depth of several inches, like the photo above from Purdue. (https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/summers-snowflakes-cottonwood-seeds-float-through-the-air/article_e9e6e960-03c9-11ee-b088-c77acc89f191.html ) I was doing my Obstetrics and Gynecology…
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What an incredible diversity of climates, landscapes, and bodies of water we have in North America and the US. As we traverse our country we might feel a sense of amazement and appreciation of “our land”. And yet, our 250 year history is one of the progressive march westward over this land, the displacement and…
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For some reason, maybe my thinner frame, maybe because wind is disorderly, and I am somewhat of a neat freak, but I really dislike wind. I wouldn’t last long in North Dakota, or on a windy seashore in Maine. Sailing never called to me. Or hang gliding, or kite surfing. So when we were hoping…
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This blog entry is a poem written during my third year of medical school, 1982-83. The context is that I was doing my Surgery rotation which included a good amount of time in the operating room, sometimes even assisting on cases. I was fascinated by anatomy from an early age and was finally getting to…
BJZ Poems and Musings 