Beautiful poem captures the pain of Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the cruellest afflictions someone can suffer. However, the key for many loved ones of Alzheimer’s sufferers lies in finding beauty and hope even in the darkest times. This achingly beautiful poem perfectly captures the pain and heartbreak of Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s Wing
As insubstantial as torn cicada wings
their old bodies are shot through with light,
the fallen leaves of autumn blown loose,
adrift and swaying in a fluky breeze of
incomprehension and the moment’s present.
The once beautiful boys in uniforms
and photographs, the doctor, general,
ex-headmaster, larrikins and wits,
sunny as spring and smiling, now stand
in tracksuit pants and food dashed shirts,
shuffle corridors and sitting rooms,
gather against the locked glass door,
uneasy ghosts in waiting, in search of home,
lost beds, watches, false teeth, cigarettes,
wives, daughters, memories, reasons why.
They play games or sit in vinyl chairs and snooze.
Sun through afternoon and picture windows
paints haloes on their heads, stipples skin
stretched on frames of bone, the light and shade
of our benevolent confinement.
What’s your favourite poem? Let us know in the comments below.
Written by Brook Emery, extracted from “With My Father-In-Law”.
This is an extract from Falling And Flying: Poems On Ageing, Edited by Judith Beveridge and Dr Susan Ogle, Brandl & Schlesinger.
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