Applauding Life: Poetry and Prose of an Octogenarian

By Barry S Savits MD FACS

This collection speaks ln the genre of poetic prose.
It incorporates language containing both dramatic and narrative elements in poetry and stories.
They are expressed in memories both serious and whimsical.
Social Consciousness abounds.
Enjoy, agree or disagree; smile/cry- or just think about the written words.
I leave them as my legacy and as a dictionary for those who might explore my meanderings.
All this, the product of an 85-year-old citizen of the world he dearly loves
Who will regret when the time for leaving it arrive

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665517607

Barry S Savits MD FACS

Barry Savits was born and raised in Chester, Pennsylvania. Except for several year-long hiatuses, he has made New York City his personal residence - since 1960. He attended Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. A surgical residency followed at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. Subsequently, he spent a year in Cuenca, Ecuador with Project Hope in 1965/ 66 to successfully salvage a failing medical school and train its surgical staff. He has also afforded in-country medical care in Afghanistan and Kenya. He has had the honor of serving his country as a Commander in the US Navy for 2 years during the latter part of the Vietnam War- in Guam and Morocco. A surgical career in Brooklyn, for 40 years, followed his national service. He was Director of Surgery at the St. Mary’s Hospital and the Kings brook Jewish Medical Center for 28 years during which time he was involved in resident and student training as well as clinical research. He fostered the concept of “Outreach” through participation in neighborhood clinics and support for local family practitioners. The remainder of his career was spent in the private practice of surgery. He is the proud husband to Joseph Meaney, a dedicated Middle School teacher. His pride and joy are his four sons and their families. He appreciates the gifts life has afforded him and supports “give back” in all its ramifications.

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© 2021 Barry S Savits MD FACS. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/23/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1761-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-1760-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021903580

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed

since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do

not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Brief Synopsis of this book

Doodles

A

A River

Amazement

Angel

Aging

An Ordinary Gesture

Aging

Amazing

Am I Alone

Alone

Ask Me

A River

A Cop

Autumns Lesson

A Tune

Autumn

A Call Upstairs

A Letter

A Door

Ants

A squirrel, a Tree, and Me

Asking

Alien Strategy

A Neighbor

Alien Strategy

B

Being Aware

Blessed art Thou

Beirut

Butterfly

Backwards

Bodies

Babies

Being Human

Beauty Denied

C

Continue

Circling Around

Chess

Crown Heights

Color Blind

Changing

Choo Choo

Chess

Celebrate

Curious

D

Dwight

Dreamland

Decisions

Do You Fancy

Day

Days Of Awe

Dominatrix

E

Eden

East Side Story

Elections

Eugene

Everyday

F

First Apartment

Fireside

Fuck, She’s Dead

Friday Night

Forgiving

Faith

Friendship

Friends Gone

Faith, Hope, Charity

For This I Am Grateful

For You

Fireside

G

Grand Central

Good Night

Going Home-Reunions

Growler

Get It Done

H

He And Me

How

How We Are Acting

How I Feel Today

Help

Harem

Happiness

Here I Am

Happy face

Homeland

Homecoming

Hurry

Pizza

Haiti

Haikus to Ponder

Haikus

Haikus

Haikus

Haikus

Haikus

Haikus

Haikus

I

Is This.......?

Isaac and I

In 2020

Inside

Inside

Instructions

In Memory Of.......

Imagine

Inside

J

July 31 1492

Just A Letter

K

Kol Nidre

L

Love

Legacy Before Birth

Listen

Like

Light/ Dark

Lima Beans

Life One Minute To live

Light

Love

Love

Let Me Look

Leaves

Legacy Before Birth

M

Memories

Memories Of The Past

Mergers

More Dreams

Hurry

My Sons/ Changing

Mirror, Mirror

Message

1941

N

Night Sky

Night

Noticing

O

Ofelia Speaks-2020

Omnipotence

Order

Only Human

Outside The Window

Oh Yeah?

Only Human

Open Window

Over The Pillow

Our Gardens

Ophelia Speaks

P

Poetry

Parade

Parsha 18

Photos

Place

Q

Quarantine

R

Returning

Reaching Out

Rainy Night

Rain

Rain

Resurrection

Remembering

Remember

Rejoice

Reduce

S

Serengeti

Start/ End

Spare us

Silence

Strangers

Speak

Shorts

Sounds

Skyscrapers

Self

Spare us

Snow White

Snap Shots

Staircase

Shadows Remembered

Second Chance

Street Lady

T

Try

24 Hours- 1959

The Wedding

The Press

Those Three Months

Thank You

Trilogy of the Beast

The Last Meal

Tomorrow

The Kitchen Table Tale

Truth

The 36er (Lamed Vavnik Tsadik)

The Call/ Obituary

Tzadik

Today

The Baton

The Rabbi Came To Dinner

Think

Toes

Too Late

Thanks

The Hurt; Then The Odyssey

Thank You

Two Kathys

The Back Yard

The Examples of Black and White

True or False

V

Vote

Vote

Voices

Voices from Below--Vietnam

W

Who am I

Where We Are Now

What’s Going On

Walls

Who Says

What I Want

Water

What Will Happen

Where Do I Sing

Winning

Winter morn

Wally

Why?

Winter

What Happened

Who Writes

What I Used To Do

Work

What Can I Forgive

What Is.....?

What Is Love

When I Am Old

When I

Y

You

You

Z

Zebra

Dedication

I dedicate this collection to my four sons,

and to my loving spouse,

With whom I have walked this Earth for 39 years.

Brief Synopsis of this book

This collection speaks ln the genre of poetic prose.

It incorporates language containing both dramatic and narrative elements in poetry and stories.

Social Consciousness abounds.

Enjoy, agree or disagree; smile/cry - or just think about the written words.

I leave them as my legacy and as a dictionary for those who might explore my meanderings.

All this, the product of an 85 year-old citizen of the world he dearly loves

Who will regret when the time for leaving it arrives...

Doodles

Are Doodles really

Absent-minded scribbles?

Why the stroke above

Rather than below,

Circles and not X’s,

Triangles instead of a wavy line?

Perhaps they are not completely

Free from mind’s intent,

Yet they speak enough of chance

And open-mindedness

To be the closest font for

The ideas and meanings

Of what you will meet

As you travel through

The alphabet

From A to Z.

A

image%20a.jpg

A River

It begins deep within the Earth

Bubbling upward in a calculated migration

Little by little, it works its way upward towards the surface.

It finally meets the sunlight

And garnishes the surrounding brown earth

With careful considerations.

Then, it settles into a preformed hollow

And the flowing begins.

It passes flowery fields,

Maize in early bloom,

And cities and towns where voices, boats and floating objects of all kinds

Define its usage and its fame.

It bring sustenance to man and beast and all their planted life-giving

Needs.

It reflects its innate beauty as it goes,

Widening out as other streams and rivulets

Join It’s beckoning magnetic Maypole.

The water creates novel patterns

Upon its ever changing surface.

It passes and bisects wooded lands

That harbor creatures of all kinds

Which depend upon the river’s liquid fuel

To sustain their well being.

It nourishes the tall trees and other vegetation.

It enters marshy enclaves

Forming pools and puddles as it lumbers along its passage.

It seems immutable- but it is not.

It changes over time

As all things do,

And rises sometimes

During storms and heavy rain

To wreak havoc and despair

Beyond its prescribed borders.

It has power

More than it knows,

But it resides within its boundary most of the time

Its movement is ongoing

There is no pause.

It never rests.

It may replenish, but nothing is ever lost.

Finally, this mobile phenomenon reaches the open sea

And all is changed.

It has met its destiny as It mixes with new waters,

New climes.

It remembers-and retains awarenesses

As it spreads out

In ways it never imagined.

Each one of us is like a river.

Our protoplasmic life emerges from

Our unique biological cave

Into the light.

We start small and grow,

Seeking a defined pathway-

All the while accepting and absorbing new knowledge.

When we begin our adult life

Just as the river, we change

Just like the river, we construct new patterns,

Learning based on more mature, but pragmatic, ideas.

We adjust to new constraints as well.

We invent new horizons.

I have described my favorite river

From start to its seeming demise,

But then reborn, as are we, in an endless sea under an endless sky.

Amazement

I lie awake at dawn

And watch the shadows

Creep into clarity,

As light works its way into

My liar, my refuge.

I view the morning images outside my window

As they become the denizens of my reality.

The whirl of the bedroom fan

Above me delivers

A pseudo spring breeze

That licks my face

And upper arms

And Embraces me-

Carrying me back to this world-

This very real morning,

To my very real self.

The sounds beyond my view

Invented by frogs and crickets,

Augmented by wild turkey

Mating battle cries

Ring in my ears.

I smile, take a breath or two,

And I am back

Into the arms of an animated life

Which has had its layered crises

And unavoidable happenstance.

Yet, I always felt the victor,

Or at least an uninjured victim.

Never say never, no or not

Seems to be the anthem

To which I pledge my allegiance

And whose lyrics I profess.

I ponder the years gone by,

I wander through lanes laced in memories-

Both those well remembered

Angel

Hello, I’m a traveling angel,

Here today, gone tomorrow.

BUT, want to leave my Earthly clients

With good advice

And resolved quandaries,

Smiling, happy, grateful for divine participation

In their mundane marathons

I fly from job to job,

Wings spread to embrace

The moment-

Enough room for consultations ala carte

And an occasional 911 intervention.

Better sign my dance card

Before all my service time is occupied.

Forty hour work week, you know.

Aging

Aging is a process- and an unavoidable one.

It is a physical mandate,

Not necessarily a psychological shut down.

Aging, we may be wading into darkness

Or splashing through high waves,

But if we are lucky

Some of us have goggles and earphones,

Flashlights or even boots to guard the feet

From damage due to an uneven stony path-

Or even life preservers borrowed from

Our grandchildrens’ play rooms.

I watched my mother die slowly

When she lived with me for four months and

An inoperable lung tumor was diagnosed.

Chemotherapy and radiation did not do their duty.

A brain metastases

Was a definitive downer

And she slowly lost her strength. One night she sat at dinner,

Not eating.

I asked her why.

She then dipped her hands into her dinner plate, forsaking a fork.

She kept a pan to beat on at her bedside

For help, or sometimes for attention.

I fed her ice cream nearly every night

Spoonful by spoonful.

Her best moments were

Sitting with her two young grandchildren

Cuddling them, feeling connected to what she had left,

All the while contemplating their future lives.

I still feel the last grasp of her hands

On mine

In silence

The morning she passed beyond flesh and blood.

So different was the path of my close held cousin

Who drank herself to a rapid death,

Discovered wrapped in her bed clothes and blankets.

Gone for days before her lifeless form

Was discovered by me

When repeated phone calls did not bear fruit.

I’m aging, too.

But I will not go graciously.

I will fight to enjoy life and laughter

As long as it is granted to me

And as long as my beloved family

Lends its needed support.

My mind is on constant alert,

Finding interest in new ideas and happenings.

I am writing my thoughts- and ideas- ongoing.

I cry more

When mentally reviewing my life,

Weeping for those things which only partly

Stirred my emotions half a century or more ago.

I relive the past, which keeps me busy;

And I am reaching out to my grandchildren

So that they will have some memory of me

As they grow

And regurgitate their feelings

In the distant future.

I intend to reach out,

As far as my arms can reach,

Forever if granted.

But more likely there will be a more limited time

Until the last hoorah

Pictures a bugler

Sounding out taps.

Then I will know its time

To pack up my bags

And disappear

Into the cave to which I’ve been assigned.

My last breath will be a transition into solitude.

Amen

An Ordinary Gesture

We all need assurances that we can and will be able to meet and solve/ overcome any hurdles we encounter in life. We must be taught to develop skills to accomplish this. But even when we receive these lessons, skillfully presented, do they accomplish biological verification? I was geared to believe in my native abilities, but the final acceptance was always just skin deep plus-until:

In August, 1965, when I finally completed my general surgical training at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, I moved to Cuenca, Ecuador, under the banner of Project Hope’s first land based mission. I did what I thought was an ordinary gesture of thanks to the world for my professional training and a guarantee for my future. It was a gift back, a mitzvah for a mitzvah. Cuenca was a city of about 60,000 inhabitants, high up in the Andes mountains. It was in the southern part of the country at 8,400 feet. The town was a place just beginning to recognize modern times. The airport was just 3 years old. A viable road to the coast had been built less than a year before my arrival. It was essentially a rigid hierarchical society. The local Quetua Indians were the majority of the population, but were ruled and held down by the white and half breed minority. Architecture was 100% Spanish Colonial, with cobblestoned streets and adobe and mud brick homes. Two large Cathedrals graced the Central Plaza. Few cars. Spanish spoken exclusively. The city’s poor washed themselves and their clothes in the small but turbulent river which ran through town. They had no other option. There was only one Hospital, supporting a medical school which the government wanted to close because of its failure to supply modern medical practices or introduce new ideas into its performances. It was essentially medicine as practiced in the 1880s- the text books were from that period. Medical education was dealt with in a laissez-faire manner. The physicians were only self-trained on old ideas and were further restrained by bureaucratic and cultural mandates. They were frustrated by their own limited performances. Though the Ecuadorian government was on the verge of closing the Medical College, at that time it supplied almost all the MD’s in the lower half of the country.

The purpose of Hope’s Outreach Project was to send the three MD’s and 10 nurses, lab and X-ray techs to make significant changes in the culture and performance at the institution and thereby salvage its existence. I was the surgeon.

I arrived on August 7. I carried a huge duffle bag and a very big suitcase which I dragged across the tarmac of the airport. The luggage contained over 100 Pounds of medicine, surgical tools and pharmaceuticals. I was fresh from the hell of Academia and raring to go. Crew cut hair, khaki pants and sneakers. I was 31 but looked 25. Murmurs from the crowd of doctors who met me in the airport terminal resonated with they are sending us babies now.

The test

Immediately upon arrival, the physicians accompanied me to the hospital which was previously a two-story military headquarters. It was built around 2 courtyards- with a wide plank wood flooring at least a half a century old. At night, the floors were wiped down with a odiferous cleaning fluid to keep the insects and spiders from crawling into the facility from below. The hospital was built without a basement. They wished me to see a small young female, an indigenous Indian girl from a river side village deep in the Amazon. Her father had brought her to the hospital because of her weakness, bluish color, shortness of breath and stunted.

Aging

Aging is a process- and an unavoidable one.

It is a physical mandate,

Not necessarily a psychological shut down.

Aging, we may be wading into darkness

Or splashing through high waves,

But if we are lucky

Some of us have goggles and earphones,

Flashlights or even boots to guard the feet

From damage due to an uneven stony path-

Or even life preservers borrowed from

Our grandchildren’s play rooms.

I watched my mother die slowly

When she lived with me for four months and

An inoperable lung tumor was diagnosed.

Chemotherapy and radiation did not do their duty.

A brain metastases

Was a definitive downer

And she slowly lost her strength. One night she sat at dinner,

Not eating.

I asked her why.

She then dipped her hands into her dinner plate, forsaking a fork.

She kept a pan to beat on at her bedside

For help, or sometimes for attention.

I fed her ice cream nearly every night

Spoonful by spoonful.

Her best moments were

Sitting with her two young grandchildren

Cuddling them, feeling connected to what she had left,

All the while contemplating their future lives.

I still feel the last grasp of her hands

On mine

In silence

The morning she passed beyond flesh and blood.

So different was the path of my close held cousin

Who drank herself to a rapid death,

Discovered wrapped in her bed clothes and blankets.

Gone for days before her lifeless form

Was discovered by me

growth. She was 15 years old but had the body of a 7 year old. The Project Hope cardiologist had diagnosed her clinically with only his stethoscope and an astute intuition. She was believed to have a patent ductus arteriosus- which is a congenital anomaly wherein there is a portion of the oxygenated blood backs up into the aorta instead of circulating throughout the body. Essentially, the patient is oxygen starved because of not delivering enough oxygen to the organs. Right heart failure is the cause of death- early in life. No other diagnostic tools, not even a chest x-ray, were available. I