Poetry can connect us to the seriously ill. Let me show you how.

1. POETRY AND HEALING
AT THE END OF LIFE
ROBERT MUNDLE

2. WHAT CAN POETRY DO?
Palliative care physician Patrick Clary (2010) said that poetry and metaphors can connect us
to the seriously ill.
Such connection can be central to healing at the end of life in a holistic approach to care.
Clary, P. (2010) Poetry and healing at the end of life.
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management,
40(5), 796-800.

3. MARIA
• Maria was an elderly Spanish-speaking lady originally from Nicaragua.
• She arrived in palliative care alone and afraid.
• But she loved poetry.

4. MARIA’S POEMS
Maria wrote out these poems for me.
• Mas Alla (‘Beyond’)
• La gran plegaria (‘Great Prayer’)

5. GERMAN PARDO GARCIA
(Columbia 1902–Mexico 1991)
Mas Alla Beyond
Mas alla del Silencio, la Armonia.
Mas alla de las Formas, la Presencia.
Mas alla de la Vida, la Existencia
Mas all de los Gozos, la Alegria.
Mas alla de la Fuerza, la Energia
Mas all de lo Puro, la Inocencia.
Mas all de la Luz, la Transparencia
Mas alla, mas alla, siempre adelante.
Mas alla, en lo Absoluto, en lo distante,
Donde la llama se aparto del leno
A fulgir, por si misma, en la figura
De un Infinito, va sin amargura.
Y mas all de lo infinito, el Sueno.
Beyond Silence, Harmony
Beyond Forms, Presence
Beyond Life, Existence
Beyond Pleasure, Happiness.
Beyond Force, Energy.
Beyond Purity, Innocence
Beyond Light, Transparency
Beyond, beyond, always forth
Beyond, in the absolute, in what is distant
Where the flame departed from the wood
O, to glow, by itself, in the figure,
of an infinite, now, without bitterness
And beyond the infinite, the Dream

6. ALFONSO CORTÉS
(Nicaragua 1893–1969)
La gran plegaria
El tiempo es hambre y el espacio es frio
Orad, orad, que solo la plegaria
Puede saciar las ansias del vacio
El sueno es una roca solitaria
En donde el aguila del alma anida:
Sonad, sonad, entre la vida diaria.
Great Prayer
Time is hunger, space is
cold
Pray, pray for prayer alone
can quiet
The anxieties of void.
Dream is a solitary rock
Where the soul’s hawk
nests:
Dream, dream during
Ordinary life.
(trans. Thomas Merton
1963)

7. TEN YEARS LATER . . .
I still feel connected to Maria.
I've always wondered about her connections to poetry.
What role did poetry play in her cultural identity?

8. POETRY AND CULTURE
Nicaraguan-American translator and editor Jessie Sandoval (2017), explained,
Like most Nicaraguans . . . I was raised to venerate poetry, especially that of our
Nicaraguan poets. . . .You speak with any Nicaraguan, and they will probably inform you
that we are all poets and that Nicaragua is the land of poets—poetry is our most prized
export (p.251).
• Sandoval, J. (2017) Translator's Afterword. In J. Sandoval (ed) From the Monastery to the
World:
The Letters of Thomas Merton and Ernesto Cardenal. Berkeley: Counterpoint.

9. ROBERT MUNDLE
Spiritual Health Practitioner
Registered Psychotherapist
robert.mundle@utoronto.ca
robertmundle.com