My Only Other Visitor

 

My Only Other Visitor

Savage, serene skin like a homogenized dream, and night’s darkness worn as a cloak, she speaks to wolves in their own language, and tracks the footprints of angels through the rain-washed earth. I scream her name from a foreign desert mind. She smiles at the gesture, but never answers. She enters and exits like a windblown ghost; like an inspired thought; like a momentary Jesus to get my Barabbas a*s sprung from another psychosocial crucifix. And, then, she is somewhat gone again; just a quiet star guardian watching over me from her midnight mountaintop. In these strange times, I melt into the static. I go back to recreating old mammoth hopes from ancient, dug up bones, and patch together lost love from coffee stained puzzle pieces. Even when hungry lions hang, furious, in the morning dew; even when Heaven is alive with multicolored flames, I do not fear. She always returns.  

Author's Note

From the eyes of an Alzhiemers patient whose lovely daughter visits him daily. For my friend and hero, Mr. John Lampton, and his sweet daughter, Tes.

Reviews

[SkinlessFrank]

This is a quiet piece, as it should be. The disease you speak of robs those we love of almost everything we once recognized in them. It is so difficult to imagine what it must be like to be inside their minds, and yet, they can be at piece at times, living in a world where they struggle to put together broken puzzles with most of pieces missing. My father died from early onset Alzheimers at the age of 55. There were these moments when, as in poem, he seemed to be both confused and content to live in a world gone wild and unpredictable, and yes, in some way he recognized the visits were from someone who he loved, but even love seemed like a concept beyond his fathoming.

[roarke]

A brilliant write. This is what I come to this site for, hoping to read, feel, react. An homage, and ode, a sensitive empathy. In the entire scope of everything, it doesn't get any better than this. Bravo.

[Larry Dyson]

alzheimers is unconscienably...my Mom is in last stages...knows no one and has no words...ty for writing this