About “After 36 Hours…”
Driving home via the Baltimore beltway after a sleep-deprived call shift can be surreal. Add to this the sudden appearance of an anvil thunderhead and small tornado, and you have the ingredients for a hallucinatory maritime illusion.
After 36 Hours on Call
Driving home in blood-stained scrubs,
I saw the blue sky-whale.
Of mythic proportions, it spouted and sported
Within the peaceful humid haze,
Of a last of summer’s end of day.
Blowhole snorting rain and hail,
Awesome was its mighty tail.
I peered up reckless through traffic lights
At azure flanks as it rolled and dove.
My eyes were dazed by lightning’s crazed flight,
I smelled ozone, fear and the coming of night.
I straddled two lanes as I struggled to espy,
Its tiny, discerning, mammal eye.
Wrenching the wheel, I pulled to the side,
Fleeing to the strong storm’s lee
Leviathan broached, crashed, sounded,
And turned to one side, just sparing me.
I sat for a bit to tremble and breathe,
Wiped my sweaty face on my sleeve,
Then continued home as one entranced,
For I had seen the rarest creature of the air.
Paula Lyons, MD
July 16, 2013