Poetics– The Art of Letting Go

Dear Old Dad

The Art Of Letting Go

Like a thief in the night,

Alzheimer’s arrived,

stealing the ultimate memory.

My own father, doesn’t recognize me ?!

I held his hand and told him I loved him,

that it was OK, he couldn’t remember.

With a glazed smile, and reduced

to a two word vocabulary

amazing and weird,

his facial expressions speaking

louder than his voice.

This pillar of my life,

now, so impossibly frail.

I am stoically frozen, but internally

plunging through maelstrom of sadness.

I want to scream, “Dad it’s me”

but don’t want to scare him.

Asked if he knew the year,

month, day, season,

as leaves ablaze in color

paint the landscape,

he didn’t know, it was fall.

I witness a manic repetition

of how he now eats;

take a bite,

lie down,

wait a few seconds,

pulls himself up,

repeat,

repeat,

repeat,

repeat,

as I write this,

the dreaded call has come,

he has but hours left.

Tears flowing, I stand at the shore,

waiting for grief’s tsunami

to arrive.

© ~ Randy Bell ~ 2013

Today claudia who is tending the bar

@ dVerse Poet’s Pub

has asked us to write about

The Art of Letting Go

Poetics– The Art of Letting Go

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