Heal Thyself:

In the latest edition of Poetry, Dunya Mikhail states,

Doctors know a lot about disease and witness a lot of problems, all they do is give you a small piece of paper with a prescription. Poets do the same. But doctors can heal you. Poets can only give you x-rays so that you see your wound.

(Poetry, February 2012, 450)

I'm not so sure doctors heal anyone. Perhaps they only help create an environment in which you heal yourself. Maybe that's what poets do too. Maybe that's the function of art. And why medicine is an art.