Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF J.L. MCDOWELL, M.D. (MOUNTAIN DOCTOR), 1970, by GEORGE ADDISON SCARBROUGH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF J.L. MCDOWELL, M.D. (MOUNTAIN DOCTOR), 1970, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Out of its plain brown
Subject(s): Christmas; Physicians; Nativity, The; Doctors


Out of its plain brown
wrapper, in its staunch but sensuous
calligraphy almost but not quite
feminine, as all purely
beautiful masculine things
are, your day-book (the letter
pressed pungently between love-mist
and ocherous bittersweet),

my present from mild
aunts, who wrapped you as, in their
tinctured innocence, they knew such rich
inditing should be
wrapped, makes holiday
reading. The letter first.
Foxed to brown-violet, the homemade
ink retreats into the ruined

tablet, so lightly
set down, it does not run. Stars
stamped from quartered muscadines
leave some such stain,
or iris bleeding on a tablecloth.
Conjecturing soft
vegetable dyes, I marvel at this real
man-woman writing, containing in

pure victory over a
split address, both sides of the
house. The tall c's coiled like fine
male ears, the l's like
women holding hands, the moon-topped
i's like children's
drawn children, proclaiming the utter
balance of your sensitive
fine mind.

I read, under Christmas
ferns and clots of fresh ground pine,
your vulnerary letter to Emmeline,
my grandmother at home
in North Carolina (you,
this side the mountain, in
Tennessee, migratory medico, following
disease like a Laplander his

reindeer, prospecting
a place): "Much heart trouble
here among the women." Your stethoscope
recorded, I am
told by reticent kinswomen,
most satisfactory poitrine
tremors on the Complimentary Scale.
And being sound in
doctrine,

you prescribed heartleaf
("that is, wild ginger") for the
general malaise, but knew less vegetable
specifics for
"The seismic passion of
the hucklebone." Among the
men, a "great desire for cordials, particularly
those encouraging
the slackened

blood," stiff gentian,
boneset, yarrow, these plainly signed in
all their upright attributes. You remark:
"There seems to be more
than a chance connection
between the fibrillations
of the women and this marked want of
renal rectitude," and so
reveal a

hankering after pure
science, as well as (shall I say?)
a prickly sense of humor. (It is
Christmas, grandpa!)
But find no plausible explanation
for the "rampant
worms in children," your heraldic
statement palpitating
small bellies

like rearing, galloping
fields of legless horses. School-teacherly,
I mark your syntax: "Worms
rampant in children,"
but see, already impressed,
the inching horde striking
the lovely "skin drummed on the pelvic
bone." You note Jerusalem
Oak

as vermifuge, growing
in plenty, and add, oddly I think,
"There are some signs of scrofula here,"
and "Yesterday, one
perished from the bad disease.
Much work to be done."
Then, in another kind of ink, this more
relevant news: "I would not
have had it

happen for the world.
The mare is dead. Two days ago I
treated a man's bilious wife, and he,
out of pure friendliness,
understand, treated Mayapple
to a peck of dried peas.
There was nothing to be done. No carminative
did more than
swell her more.

I shall miss her sorely.
When I shall travel other than by virtue
of shank's mare, I do not know. What's
done is done, however.
I must thank the Heavenly
Father it is no worse."
Knowing your penury, I wonder at your
easy resignation. But then
I understand

you are not resigned,
only obsessed to make the world well,
and mindless of the decent living
the world requires. O
dear grandmother forgive you!
You do not seem to feel
your own burden. "These are pale, slack,
useless folk, who need me,
Emmeline,

to put them on the go
again. Please understand, accommodations
are few: not much house to live in:
a fieldstone hearth for
warmth, one small glass
windowpane. Not quite the
mansion a healer might require. But
the spring's not far,
the water

soft and sweet, the hills
heavy with health. Lusher materia medica
I have not seen. One hour this morning,
I espied angelica, mandrake,
elecampane, witch-hazel -- all
in one small valley. Add sarsaparilla
for taste, honey for vehicle, heal-all
pure corn whiskey
for menstruum,

and 'tis a right flavorsome
place! I almost see the soothing stillicide
pulse from these darling plants, steady
as eavesdrop. Eureka, dear!
Because I go on foot, I cannot
come for you. Sell all, therefore,
except the barest needs. Hire
wagons. Bring on yourself
and children."

I understand, J.L.
Your words, like wilting violets, seep
deeper in my mind than I have conscience
for this Christmas morn.
Dark lie the mountains
on which she walked, behind,
trailing your passion. Let women weep
and angels sing, grandpa!
I see the star!

http://www.wlu.edu/~shenano





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