Grey Matter by Zina Mercil, Listener Poet — The Good Listening Project

Origin Story

He was a third year Neurology Resident whose passion was palpable as he shared that he had only fallen more in love with medicine over the past three years. He felt that education was an important part of his role, and he was committed to people understanding the breadth of the role of the neurologist. Sharing broad ideas as well as particular details, he outlined the diversity of what neurologists do that people often don’t know or see. He considered the timing and timelines of care as he worked within interdisciplinary teams and with patients and families.

Decision-making was a difficult part of his role, often in the grey. His eyes were bright with enthusiasm and care as he discussed his philosophy of treating the whole person, and “sculpting” himself as a better provider every day—“that’s why they call it a practice, it’s an ongoing process.” One of his favorite quotes he shared was about the impact of working with acute cases, as “you save two people’s lives, the person and the person who’s caring for them for the rest of their lives.”

Zina Mercil, Listener Poet
The Poetry of Human Flourishing: Stories from the Healthcare Graduate Education Continuum for the KNN, Vol. 3
March 2026

Grey Matter

By Zina Mercil, Listener Poet

The brain is who we are.

Left / Right
Language and expression/Attention and orientation

A stroke in one small place–
and suddenly the words inside
((can no longer be said)) “Aphasia”

Another place–
and half the world ((disappears)):
a plate of food eaten only from the right “Neglect”

Inpatient / Outpatient
Strokes and Seizures/Headaches and Tremors

Grey matter is a gray matter

… & Time is Brain … every second losing neurons … every
minute another decision made … sometimes in time to dissolve
a clot … sometimes the resolve to declare brain-death

Doctor / Patient
Dealing in milliseconds/Consequences for lifetimes
As we attend to the neuronal real-estate

The brain is a universe.

And we as neurologists, are preservers
standing at the shoreline
of an emergent ocean called consciousness–
Not just treating diseases of the Brain,
but protecting the person it creates.

More Poems & Stories

Grey Matter

He was a third year Neurology Resident whose passion was palpable as he shared that he had only fallen more in love with medicine over the past three years. Decision-making was a difficult part of his role, often in the grey.

The Restless Nest

"How can I be so still and so exhausted at the same time? I am taking in and processing so much more information now," she said. "I feel like a spinning top, moving in every direction at the same time."

Each Spring Reminding Me

“Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong,” she said. She held her baby in her arms as she shared their birth story. Her daughter spent three weeks in the NICU, and she was there every day.

No Words Exist (Why They’re Afraid of Us)

“I was at a birth recently and thought: This is why they are so afraid of us. They can’t control this” She sat on her couch with a mug of coffee. She is a queer, femme, mother of two who has worked in reproductive health for over two decades.

Housewarming

Interspersed with the joys and worries of being a gramma, she recounted her own grandparents – challenges and opportunities of caring for them, grief of losing them, gratitude for being loved by them, and the everyday experiences of now living in their home.

Language of Diagnosis

What is pain without a diagnosis? This is what occupied this patient before she even received her breast cancer diagnosis about a year ago.

Gratitude

She told me that she picked her battles more and was trying to be less of a people pleaser.

Growth Phase

He ended up talking about his son, who is now his daughter. Another part of his experience of continual growth and soul-opening.

Dinner

Her values and perspective on life had changed as she considered ways to spend more time with her husband.

American Sonnet for Father Day and the Wisdom Tree

“When I see an old dude who’s optimistic, living his life, I always stop to talk to him to try to find out what he has done.”

enough

This nurse was considering leaving a position where she spent many years due to issues she experienced and witnessed at her hospital.

Variant

Many of the people he worked with had to develop a new identity in the context of their caregiving responsibilities. “It’s as if they need to become a new variant of themselves.”

In the River You May Find Yourself

“We’re taught to enter a room with a specific goal... with assumptions... with a hypothesis about what may be going on with the patient.”

The Shift

She believes that most of those who have connected with ACS began with a personal connection, but then, according to her, “you evolve, and you shift.”

Walk With Me

With her background in counseling and psychology, she works to bring people together and support patients.

Legacy of Hope

Although at times she becomes discouraged about the inequalities in the world, she is determined to do her part by making sure everyone has access to quality healthcare.

Living in the Magic

This person radiated gratitude and hope. She shared that she discovered she was expecting a son just before receiving a lung cancer diagnosis at the age of 31.

The House Medicine Built

She had an epiphany as a child — that love could heal the world. Now, as a seasoned physician, there’s still a part of her that believes in the power of love, but not with the same idealism she once held.

Why Neurologists Write

He talked about recently speaking with a patient who experiences migraines: she is seeking the truth, he is seeking the truth to find a way to work with her, wanting to give more than a diagnosis and prognosis.

I Am Stuck on a Wheel That Keeps Turning

To her, the surgical world has felt like “a wheel that keeps spinning,” a seemingly endless pursuit towards an undefinable goal.

List

While she kept an open mind throughout medical school, the field of OB/GYN ticked off all the boxes for her.

Where Do the Children Play?

“I always took strength from the way little kids would handle it.”

We Shall Know Her Name

“The historic traumas of African-American women — all African-Americans — lead us to not be the first people at the doctors, nor the first to get surgery.”

One Human Body

“Sometimes I feel so helpless,” said this resident, reflecting on all of the challenges faced by the young patients and their families whom she served. Over the last several days, she has become increasingly overwhelmed by events in the news and has questioned her ability to make a difference in the world.

Stories with My Father

“It’s hard to watch the decline and sometimes hard to visit but it weighs on me not to,” she said. Her father had always been an elaborate storyteller and an alive, vibrant man with a big voice.

We Matter, Guys

The Good Listening Project was honored to once again take part in the annual KNN conference in Minneapolis this year. Jenny closed the session by writing this harvest poem that captured the voices and sentiments shared.

In The Middle Way

After a history of crippling endometriosis, this woman had an arduous, ongoing struggle with her healthcare community for the right to have a hysterectomy. She was finally granted approval at the age of 29. “It had been like pulling teeth, but finally I felt free,” she told me.

'O ka mele

Her childhood was infused with Hawaiian-Polynesian music and dance, taught to her father by his mother. Today, her life’s work is to connect the unbelievable discoveries of molecularly focused pre-clinical research directly to the patient experience of treatment.

On the darkest days

She is a single mother born to a single mother and had to grow up fast. She is juggling a sticky work situation, her own anxiety and depression, and being away from home and her kids.

This Healing Place

I was invited to create a group poem for forty participants at the Arts in Healing luncheon, hosted by the Inova Health Foundation in partnership with the board.