A Poem - EXPERIENCE

*This poem is the first I have written in months. I got the inspiration one nite after looking at myself in the mirror in the staff room at the hospital. I was dead tired and had run yet another call that nite. I looked very old in the harsh light of that bathroom mirror and I vowed never to let myself forget how far I'd come in 11 years.*




EXPERIENCE

I swiveled in my seat peering behind me
Five eager faces stared back, a sea of orange helmet shields.
At the scene of the call they stand, wide eyed and gawking
Can't blame them really....they are newbies in the fire service
Don't have experience....not like I do.
I guess eleven years in will do that to you....you just turn off your emotions and deal with the problems.
The problems that arise in the middle of the night, during a blizzard.
Up and out of bed......again.

Sometimes you just laugh at them....the patients.....after you bring them in....
to the hospital where I know all the ER Docs and Nurses by their first names
And the new kid asks me where to get a clean sheet for the stretcher.

I look in the mirror in the staff room and don't like what I see.
Cold eyes, dark circles under them and a grimly set mouth....I'm tired...
I run my hand over my face trying to wipe away the years of experience
Can't though...it's etched on my soul....
Eleven years of shit, blood, pain, suffering....
Eleven years of helping, hoping, praying, laughing and joking....

They are my brothers and sisters, the ones who serve with me.
Some much older who have more time in then I've been alive,
Some veterans like me who have seen lots but have more life left,
And some orange shielded newbies who ain't seen shit yet.



c.2010 Moonghozt


Signing Off 16:17