A poem for Catherine Hamlin

Catherine Hamlin, an Australian Doctor, established a hospital in Ethiopia in 1974 with her late husband to treat women who had been damaged by the complications of childbirth. Because of their wretched injuries these women were commonly cut- off from their families and communities, often permanently.So far the hospital has successfully performed fistula repair surgery on more than 34,000 women.

She might have traced the sweetness of her child,
Raised him up,
Felt the weight of his infancy comply to her breast,
But the thorns of Africa drive deep:
In the groaning travail of birth she was cruelled,
In the joy of yielding to life she was abandoned
And curled in an atrophy of shame,
Was soured,
Became untouchable.

And so we are haunted by our hesitations,
By our capacity to abstain from grace,
To forget the best-forgotten
By crafting a life of contained mercies
Counted out in the small currency
Of familiar denominations.

But in your fretting time you squired them home
To shelter and sheets of soft linen,
Knowing that for those who are untouchable
The moment of healing begins
With the sacrament of touch.