An earlier version of this poem appeared in Poetry Monthly
magazine (April 2007) and subsequently in my collection, Accomplices to Illusion, the same year; it was
written with a friend in mind, but also for the many thousands of people
diagnosed with dementia and their carers to try and give them some
encouragement and help them through the early years of what is a heart-breaking
condition
My
friend rarely indicates that he recognises me now, but his friends and family know the person
who is my friend is still there, inside the person he has become, because every now and
then he finds a way - if only fleetingly, through the ever thickening mists of dementia - to tell us so.
Time, even unto death and beyond, has neither remit nor power to erase living memory altogether, especially where love is concerned.
'Memory is the diary we all carry about with us.' - Oscar Wilde
“That I shall love always,
I argue thee
that love is life,
and life hath immortality”
- Emily Dickinson, That I did always Love
MISTY MEMORIES or TIME, NO FINAL CURTAIN
Let
life be painting pictures on the heart
for
the soul’s grasp forever to retain,
so the
mind’s eye, less clear than at the start
and
peering through mist,can enjoy again
Though
memory’s jigsaw, it may fall apart,
fitting the pieces, we make bad choices,
the
mind’s ear, if less clear than at the start,
is
still listening out, hears love’s voices
Our
finer senses, heart and soul shall hone,
if
seen to work in mysterious ways,
so
Memory, though fair stripped to the bone,
to the
inner self stays true all our days
Though we be taken for but shadows in a mist,
we know better whom love has ever kissed
Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2019
[Note:The dinal couplet of this poems was revied, May 2020.]
Labels: Alzheimer's, condition, consciousness, culture, dementia, global, health, human, immortality, love, memories, mental, mind-body-spirit, nature, poetry, posthumous, relationships, society, spirit, time
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