Into Your Hands
(A tribute to the newborn intensive care nurse)
Into your hands I bring a life,
Small and fragile;
just a spark that's fading into the dawn
and yet as precious as any.
For I have learned from you
that all life is right
and justifies the greatest fight
that man can give to save it.
That it may be wasted later is true,
but to you here and now,
it is tended and nurtured with infinite skill and wisdom,
until every energy for life which man can give
has been expended.
For you, death is still the arch-intruder;
common as he is, he has still not dulled your senses.
For I have seen your tears,
and I have seen you soar
when one wee name has been stricken from his list.
And I have felt your strength-
Those strong, broad shoulders bearing great burdens gently.
For you have pitted brain and skill and love alone against the night
and won.
I have listened to your instinct;
that wild and magic unmeasurable something that men do not posess.
Tending and mothering and feeling and knowing when something's wrong
When all else of man's devices fail to know.
So once more...into your hands I bring a life.
Small and fragile; just a spark that's fading in the dawn.
For who but you can hold this life secure...
and who but you can know how great a triumph
may yet await another dawn.
-Alan Van Orman, M.D.
