Laura Brylawski-Miller

First, Do No Harm Laura Brylawski-Miller

In Robert Fagles' translation of Vergil, Aeneas,
contemplating the Trojan War cries out, "The
world is a world of tears, and the burdens of
mortality to touch the heart."
Laura Brylawski-Miller intuits the lacrimae
rerum, the tears in things throughout her poetry,

and it is not only a result of the classic education
she received in her native Italy, but a
guiding insight that directs her view of the world,

the shape of her soul. Like the Buddha of
Sokkuram, she is stunned by the suffering she
sees in the world and is left with the only possible
response, compassion for the human condition.
Compassion in her, however, is not naiveté. This
intuition is perhaps what first led her to medicine,

the sensitivity for the pain of others, the need to
heal, even when that healing process means
debriding dead tissue with her poetic scalpel.
"First, do no harm," the Hippocratic oath
demands, but sometimes it requires severe
measures as every surgeon knows.