Poetry Rx by Norman E. Rosenthal M.D

Author:Norman E. Rosenthal M.D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: G&D Media
Published: 2021-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

I recall a conversation I had with a cousin, an elderly widow who had left our native country some years before to settle near her son in Canada. I asked her whether she missed South Africa, to which she replied, “I can’t afford to miss South Africa. I have burned my bridges there, so I must make my life here in North America.” And she had made a fine life for herself. Her eightieth birthday was attended by dozens of friends, some old but mostly new, in the country she had come to call home.

I tell this story not because it is unusual but because it is so common. In North America, apart from the Native Americans, we were all originally immigrants. Machado’s poem—and the lesson embedded in it—is therefore highly relevant to many in the United States, as it is to people all the world over.

All immigrants have a story with common elements: who and what they left behind; what it took to get here (wherever here may be); how they were integrated into a brave new world; and longings and nostalgia, intermingled with the excitement, freedom, and opportunities offered by their new home.

Some immigrants may go back to their native countries, disappointed by what they found or for other reasons, but for many, the poverty, tyranny, oppression, danger, or lack of opportunity they left behind makes such a course of action unthinkable. They understand all too well that there is no road back.

I should note here that I was a privileged immigrant, arriving with my medical training and a job lined up for me. Millions of immigrants are not so fortunate. They have to work very hard, often in harsh conditions, to build good lives for themselves.

For those who choose to stay in their adoptive country, the simple but profound realization that my cousin expressed becomes a guiding principle: “I have burned my bridges. I can’t go back, so I had better not dwell on how much I miss home and family.” It is that principle that Antonio Machado expresses in this short and eloquent poem.

In Machado’s vision, there are no bridges to burn. The road that you came by has disappeared like a ship’s wake. There is no road. The only road is the road you have made with your footprints. Now your feet are here, and your footprints have disappeared.

Machado, who was a deeply contemplative man, might well have thought of his poem figuratively as well. In other words, each of us travels our own unique road in life as we make our own way. It brings to mind Frost’s poem, where the life you lead is determined by which road you take at each fork in the wood. Again, there is no road back. The time has passed. We are at a new place. Options and alternatives have been foreclosed, so we had best focus on the present and the road ahead, not the footprints that have disappeared.

Lines of Machado’s poem, initially written in Spanish,

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