Sala de Esperanza
The sign on the hospital wall
identifying the space
begins with a Spanish phrase—
sala de espera,
waiting room.
A more symbolic phrase
may have deeper meaning
for those awaiting news of loved ones there—
sala de esperanza,
room of hope.
Those waiting
can do little but hope—
yet hope is everything to them
in that often desperate time
of craving favorable answers
to tormenting questions.
Is he alive?
Are baby and mother all right?
Did you get it all?
Will she be able to walk,
to talk,
to come home?
The value of those in the sala de esperanza
hoping
is not to affect
the answers to such questions.
They cannot.
The value of hoping
is the clarity
of the love of those who wait
for whom they wait.
About this poem
Lawrence Hergott is a practising consultant cardiologist, as well as Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Senior Scholar in Creative Writing, Center for Bioethics and Humanities, University of Colorado School of Medicine. His scholarly interest is in writing philosophical essays and poems that typically deal with how medical practitioners and their loved ones lead the medical life, and with patient-doctor interactions. His essays and poems have mostly been published in medical and literary journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAM), Annals of Internal Medicine, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and others.
This poem is one of the editors’ highlighted selection of poems proposed after an open call for the second edition of Tools of the Trade: Poems for new doctors.
