Thirteen minute Ramble two

I left home in September of sixty nine
said goodbye to everything familiar
the endless cups of tay and scone bread
away from the voices of my community
into the cold sterile place of school
to a small dorm room where I would study
books on anatomy and nursing practice
I traded my farming clothes for a uniform
of blue and a watch that hung from my dress
it was never easy being out in the world
Tyrone county hospital Omagh called me nurse
we giggling girls went trough the trials
of becoming slaves to doctors orders
of making beds with neat folded corners
of carrying urinals to older men in bed
I traded my county side walks for the
smell of antiseptic soap and dirty laundry
of operating theater and well scrubbed hands
of unexpected death and sorrow of violence
from car accidents to sickness and domestic
horror in the first year I saw it all
called to baptize a dying new born
to washing the now still breathed elder
and then in emergency the shocking loss
of life of an eight year old child at three
in the afternoon she lived seven days after
the truck opened a gaping wound on her small
forehead and we hopelessly tried to save her
reading the words in stone written in stone
above the entrance to causality to live
in hearts we leave behind is not to die
as I listened to the priest comfort parents
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die