Fragmented Soul

By jpgasp

Wed, 22 Mar 2017
  • 459 reads
2 comments
 
She sits in her wheelchair, glossy silver hair
falling gently below her ears.
 
She reminds me of my Grammy,
in the simplicity of her soft expression, 
and of her stories.
 
Some days she smiles with her toothy smile,
and some days she cries into her
 
blanket.
 
But every day she is a fragmented soul.
She has lost the dignity of humanity
(she needs a crane to get onto the toilet)
and her words escape her like a 
child’s hope for summer.
 
“I suffer” were the words that will haunt me,
even when the Great Potter has kilned 
the shattered
pieces of who she was, and is, deep down. 
 
And I can only sit there, listening 
to the stories she tries to tell,
of who she was, and is, deep down,
 
trying to be her son on some days, and her nephew on others.
 
But in that one shining moment, when
that toothy, telling smile shows the
being that she was, and is,
I see the measure of a life—
of her life—
and me with my not so toothy smile
yet grins with a knowingness
of two old souls in two different bodies,
acknowledging life, and nothing else in particular.
Certificate 15
Poem
Unclassified

Comments

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

A touching tale within this poem.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by celticman on

eloquently put, a vision of one who is loved.