Three New Poems By Jerome W. Freeman Searching for Shed Antlers in March oooooooofor Suzanne When the dull morning becomes sunshine on snow, we head out in search of antlers shed by deer too preoccupied to sense their loss Trails extend through trees, converging at times before veering off over another hill. Scat lends dark accent to furrows of snow and crisscrosses patches of exposed ground on south facing slopes. Newly uncovered prairie lies brittle and brown, exhausted by the winter We exclaim each time another antler is found, eagerly counting points and our good fortune. Someone asks how a deer, having lost its crown, becomes whole again. Much occurs behind our backs. Good things can follow loss, like insight and expectation. A new season unfolds. Soon we'll seek pasque flowers hidden among the hopeful grasses of spring. Off Warranty If you'd just come in sooner, we could have helped. Commerce and custom accept that all things wear out. Standard stipulations apply. A variance of the heart may count, or not. The body insists on its own rules and rhythms of obsolescence prevail If the pendulum of regularity is jostled, the secure arc wobbles on new physics. An EKG measures the beat, discreetly oblivious of consequences. At the MS Clinic Signs are protean, like syphilis, like fear. Numbness creeps into consciousness. An awkward stumble is a caution as two roads, then four, then more diverge. Destination is veiled, receding before each hopeful advance. Illusions chafe. The broad sweep of life is constrained by ill-timed exacerbations. Threat of inexorable erosion lingers fiercely. Copyright © 2002 by Jerome W. Freeman

Jerome William Freeman is a practicing physician and educator. He is professor and chair of the Department of Neurosciences, University of South Dakota School of Medicine, and is also on the faculty of Augustana College. He has a particular interest in biomedical ethics and the use of literature in teaching about illness, the patient, and the caregiver. He serves as Director of the Center for Ethics and Caring at Sioux Valley Hospital. He has authored three volumes of poetry -- Something at Last, Easing the Edges, and Starting From Here -- and a collections of essays, Come and See. In addition he has contributed to and has co-edited an anthology about caring, The Call to Care. His work is featured in the poetry and caring sections of Ex Machina Books and Art.