Woman Across the Hall

14 November 2006

There is a woman in a room

Across the hall from where I live;

At intervals throughout the day

She calls for help she does not need.

She lies in bed and calls for help

Or maybe sitting in a chair

She stares unseeing at the wall

And calls for help she does not need.

The nurses come and talk to her

And speak into her ear and press

Her hand and stroke her cheek and still

She calls and sometimes whispers “Help!”

And I, alone, across the hall,

Will think of loved ones far away,

Or dead and buried long ago,

And cry for help without a sound.

Speed of Old Age.

3 September 2012

I remember distinctly

Running around the park;

I remember singing

High notes (not quite like a lark).

I remember talking

Of urges, desires and fears;

I remember my whispers

Into pink and receptive ears.

I remember my past life,

Decades of love and of hurt;

All this I do remember

Struggling to put on my shirt.

Guru Angel

4 February 2013

It is important that I tell the days apart.

(Today is laundry day, or is it not?)

At breakfast Alice mentioned exercises;

That helped me to identify the day.

Today is Monday. Yesterday was Sunday

When my slimwaisted elegant computer guru 

Appeared at twenty minutes notice, diagnosed

The problem, then went out to buy what’s missing.

Went out to buy despite my remonstrations:

“It’s after five. Whatever shops did open,

They would be closed by now, by six o’clock!”

She came, she went, she came – the guru angel!

Rosstown Fare

Such is the life in the home for the aged;

Having now changed where I sleep and I eat

(Bed is still single, but board is communal)

I will consider the pros and the contras

Living in company - sleeping alone .

Menus are perfect I hasten to verify;

I did not think that my palate would relish

(Nor my digestion digest without question)

Haute cuisine from breakfast to dinner

And sweet tasting milos in bed.

Yet as I savour impeccable dishes

I do pursue the contours and curves,

The grace of the women who bring us the dishes

And talk to us sweetly…, yet I remain mute

And so do they.