20150716 (dementia)

Again today I scared myself of getting old 

I worked a mere six hours at a Habitat site

Nothing terribly hard some stretching

To make measurements moving a step ladder

From one wall to another a little drilling

Sawing with power tools bending over my gut

Probably the worst exertion of the day

The last time I did this was on a Saturday

In May on Sunday I was still sore wondered 

If I should cancel my next volunteer stint

Physical work was never my strong suit

I could do it took a little longer carried a little less

But kept at it until I’d eaten the elephant

When I couldn’t I’d get help or figure out 

Another way to get the job done I was

So much more able even two years ago

Deterioration’s been slow almost

Unnoticeable until lately when it’s

Obvious in everything I undertake yet

That’s not the aging that scares me 

So long as I can still get around

Through the day complete the task

Now maybe after the nap or next week

When it’s not raining so much

Getting the tarp over the leaking skylight

In the garage was rough carrying bricks

Up a ladder since it’s in place 

The wood’s drying out real repairs 

Can wait until after I reflash the chimney

Stop those leaks houses are half blessing

Half curse I always say like an old-timer

Issuing pithy proverbs drawn from his lifetime 

Of painfully accrued wisdom to anyone

Charitable enough to wait out my rants

Like you, dear Reader, hoping the next line

Will reward you for going this far

OK here it is you still there it’s those 

Little instances of forgetting like having to go

Back up the ladder and measure again

Because you’re really not sure you saw

Fourteen and thirteen-sixteenths it might

Actually have been thirteen and fifteen sixteenths

So you say to your co-worker only half in jest

Don’t get old no really don’t get old

When what’s going through your head

Is that the night before you said hello to

The wife of a friend it’s said she’s been failing

For years now here she was in a wheelchair

Considerably more fragile than she was

Last year on her feet accompanying him to 

Gatherings you introduce yourself

To give her a hint do I know you she asks

I give her my card and ask if she likes the music

She soon turns away as if I hadn’t spoken at all

Stares at the crowd ahead another friend

Looking after her mom tells me she has to

Reinstruct her about every twenty minutes

What comes to mind is the image of a friend’s 

Father who spent his last days in dementia

Raving naked smearing his feces onto blank white 

Walls occasionally producing what sounded like words

Another friend’s wife twenty-eight but the cancer

Was destroying her brain in a similar room

In an identical state her husband admitted

Visiting as she failed grew so painful

He prayed for her death to come soon

So when later this evening I met 

Dean on the street and we chatted across 

The racial divide about scrapping 

As a way to cover small expenses 

When you’d spent your retirement check 

By noon of the day of deposit 

Didn’t want to beg haircut money

Later that month which is why she’s my ex-

Only half-jokingly tell me your name again 

I’m getting old I explain

I’m grateful I remembered it now 

From an hour ago 

Dean

c. J.S.Manista, 2015