Playing Old 78s at the Nursing Home
Tag Archives: Dementia
Alice’s Father
It’s Alzheimer’s Awareness Month . Sending loving thoughts to those struggling with the disease and their caregivers.
Celebrating the moments of clarity and connection.
AGING GRACEFULLY
AGING GRACEFULLY
We have decided that
we aren’t oldsheimery at all
but absent minded professors
far too caught up on Newtonian
and Russelian physics,
and epigenetic
and brain scan implications in
the present presidential race
to remember to put
the butter back in the fridge
ALICE’S FATHER
ALICE’S FATHER
Farther and farther he sank
below the surface of dementia
And yet like a salmon
in his homeland of Scotland
he would rise to the words
of a favorite poem
Grab the hook and leap
the length of the line
PLAYING OLD 78s AT THE NURSING HOME
PLAYING OLD 78s AT THE NURSING HOME
Aunt Myrtle
skips a groove from time to time
The needle, still diamond sharp
plays 1952 for a round or two
Then the niceness of the people here
grandpa’s bad temper, and the size
of the long kitchen at the farm
The sweetness of her husband
sometimes here and sometimes gone
and where is he now?
Reminded that he died some years ago
with quick humor still intact, replies
That would explain why he never comes to visit
LAYING DOWN TOOLS
LAYING DOWN TOOLS
All’s hammers now
finer tools
one by one laid by
and every day
more nails
half hit and bent
and every blow
that much farther
from the mark
Y’ALL’SHEIMERS
Y’ALL’SHEIMERS
Getting old and forgetting
that the South lost the war