Bearing

Abstract

“Bearing” reflects on a moment of moral conflict in a combat environment, where training, survival and duty to care collide. In high-risk settings, medical service members are taught repeatedly that even in chaos, they must remain grounded; the instinct to run toward danger is tempered by the responsibility to preserve life, including their own, as a vital part of the team’s ability to continue care. The poem explores the tension between action and restraint, and the enduring weight carried when outcomes are uncertain and choices are final. In medicine, these moments become part of the cross we carry—quiet, often unseen, yet shaping how we return to care, again and again, guided by compassion even when resolution may seem out of reach