“‘O ka mele” by Julia McDonald
Her childhood was infused with Hawaiian-Polynesian music and dance, taught to her father by his mother. Today, this poemee is the Director of a PhD program in Biomedical and Translational Sciences. She has used HeLa cells for decades. Her life’s work is to connect the unbelievable discoveries of molecularly focused pre-clinical research directly to the patient experience of treatment.
“I think we’ve lost sight of the connection to patients,” she says. She learned this lesson firsthand when her father died. “There’s just a lack of humanity in truth and treatment by the medical industry,” she remembered, grief etched in her face. “No information, no permission…”
“Faith is my foundation,” she says, “and my opposition to rage is fun stuff, creative things, the legacy from my father. I sing the way my dad taught me.”
Julia McDonald, Listener Poet
Listener Poet Session
January 2025
‘O ka mele
By Julia McDonald, Listener Poet
What is Spirit if not the
eternal vibration of song?
Music echoing through generations,
like shifting chords on a ukulele,
each progression a history poured
from vessel to living vessel,
songs and prayers to unseen
descendants, each note
scented smoke rising
from a swinging thurible: “Those who
live and believe in me will never die…”
Immortality does not mean
unchanging: A population of billions
may all originated from one, yet
each roundish or more cuboidal offspring
is a tune played a million times—
never exactly like your father.
No one sings it exactly like you.
Tiny differences with every passage
forever and exponentially altering
the future.
