The A1 Verse: Inside the inhospitable

Every so often, a story published on the front page of the New York Times is so well written, meaningful, and appropriate to the Bulletin’s concerns that small snippets of it, properly chosen and arranged, produce something more than journalism, something that approaches … poetry. That blessed coincidence occurred October 4, 2021.

We suspect it’ll occur again.

Alaska Doctors Forced to Pick Who Is Treated

(from the original by Mike Baker)

Intensive
in the night,
in a deluge of patients
in line for the final bed,
in grim choices
in the darkest days,
in overwhelmed workers,
in the people and the numbers
in the country.