Mary Seacole
Black nurse sculpture
Your determination points
To injustice. Your struggle
To serve, be accepted.
Why were you shamed and denied?
This is the broken land where we live.
Your courage, your stride
Takes me to our weakness

To the ache in my chest like a
broken blood vessel.
And trace the lines in my hand
To a bad rotting root.
How many wounds did your hand with compassion soothe?

Behind your certitude
I imagine pain.
Did your hurting
Search out injury and loss?

And as you nursed those violent lacerations,
Patiently waiting whilst the pathway beat its course,
Did you see as if through a veil,
Your own fractured self,
Fusing with your patient’s,
Both your Injuries restore back together
All the way towards their good health?