My son brings me a stone and asks
which star it fell from,
he is serious
and so I must be careful, even though
I know he will place it
among those things that will leave him
someday, and he
will go on gathering. For this
is one of those moments
that turns suddenly towards you, opening
as it turns, as if for an instant
we paused on the edge
of a heart beat, conscious
of the fear that runs beside us
and how lovely it is to be with each other
in the long resilient mornings.—David Watts, M.D.
David Watts, M.D., was born and raised in Georgetown, Texas, and is a graduate of Baylor College of Medicine. He is a gastroenterologist, as well as a poet and essayist, and is on the clinical faculty of the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine, where he teaches a weekly writing workshop.