Poetry and Medicine: Old Brush Piles by the Side of the Road

This issue, I present reflections and a poem on Mississippi’s recent Winter Storm Fern by the brilliant physician writer Dwalia South, MD. For the past 40 years, Dr. South has been a family physician in her birthplace of Ripley, Mississippi. She long wrote a popular column for this publication entitled “Una Voce,” and currently writes a column published in several Mississippi newspapers entitled “Southernism.” In her “Southernism” column in June, 2026, entitled “The Ice-Capades of 2026: Rapid Ramblings about ‘Ice Storm Fern’ and her Aftermath,” Dr. South writes: “How is it possible that four months have now passed since every person in north Mississippi was afflicted with the new ailment I have labeled ‘The PITS’: Post Ice-storm Traumatic Stress Disorder? Yes, it was and still is the PITS! Some symptoms of the PITS Disorder include: a heart-sinking response to the lights in your home blinking off and on which gives you that ‘Oh, no, not again!’ feeling … a compulsion to keep your cell phone charged to the max at all times because it is your only available connection to the outside world … and a real aversion to anything pine-scented…Recounting the misery that millions endured of course does not lessen how isolating the effects were here out in the countryside. I, along with so many others, was trapped in my abode by a couple of trees stretched across my driveway… Yes, as of the time of this writing it has been exactly 4 months since this most recent calamity has occurred, but its after-effects are inescapable. I think I will be tossing broken limbs from now ’til doomsday… The most enduring reminder of the horrors that Fern brought us are encapsulated by these cobbled-up lyrics that come to mind every time I drive through Tippah County and still see the mountainous, ubiquitous, and ugly brush heaps waiting for someone (or anyone) to whisk them away.” What follows is Dr. South’s poem entitled “Old Brush Piles by the Side of the Road,” which she adds is “to the tune of ‘Old Brush Arbors’”(1965) by country music artist George Jones.