So this is where I am

Published on by Laura Bloomsbury 
It's not the home I had though they tell me I'm home now that I'm safe (but what of all these strangers here about  that no one mentions). So many comings and goings. Someone must have left the front door open. Who was it said:  Doors forget but only doors know what it is doors forget.1 Carl somebody or other. I forget things. But I know I'm not allowed to lock the door. There's always a draft though and ugly faces peeking through the frosted glass.

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Today there's a bowl of flowers on the hall table, full of  names I know for sure like tulips, pink, and cheerful. Makes me think of a painterly poem with nice rhymes I knew by heart: The tulips make me want to see— The tulips make the other me (The backwards one who’s in the mirror, The one who can’t tell left from right), 2 The backwards me walks around now but not out there. There's three flower beds chock full of rainbow colours.  Plants aren't supposed to stand in roll call lines. They should be allowed to move but I can never go to them, not without a shadow. 

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Down the hall's a lounge with comfy chairs that lost their comfiness, probably before the war. It smells a bit too so I spray beeswax polish. It's good for the furniture and reminds me of church: The Lord revealed to me that I am full of birds turned smoke and hookèd strings.3 That was Margarita Mary or some such and my head's like a pigeon's nest but it’s hard to think with that television always on, droning on and on. Folk just sitting and staring. We used to call it the goggle box. Sometimes it talks under its breath.

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There is a room here though where no one goes but me. It's full of things I used to have, A small bed and chair with knitted cushions. A picture of  Jim before he left and lots of children with blonde hair. Some, they say are mine, but I never see them.  How does it go? for the leaves were full of children, hidden excitedly, containing laughter...human kind cannot bear something something what might have been and what has been"4
Every morning when I wake I say: 'hello walls, so this is where I am'. It helps me to remember.

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  1. Carl Sandburg “Doors” ↩︎
  2. A. E. Stallings “Tulips” ↩︎
  3. Mary Margaret Alvarado “The Chapter of the Rending in Sunder” ↩︎
  4. T. S. Eliot “Burnt Norton” (#1 The Four Quartets”) ↩︎

Jennifer Wagner is our guest prompter for the Poetic Challenge “So This Is…Ted Kooser, or Local Wonders” in which we take Kooser’s poem on Nebraska as exemplar, using his opening line “So this is”. and letting our poetry fill in all the details of our chosen place. This prose style poem, immerses in the inner world and outer place of a woman with dementia onset, who obviously loved poetry. It arose spontaneously though apt since November is Alzheimer’s Awareness month

33 thoughts on “So this is where I am”

  1. This one touched me a lot since it reminds me of my mother as it was before she got to sick to live at home… love how you weaved a quote of a poem into each part of prose that made them stand out the more…. the part about her children was really touching.

    1. thank you Bjorn – the poetry is like a touchstone for this woman.

      p.s. the saddest part is how dementia puts us out of touch with the ones we love and the afflicted one is unsure, lost, often frightened and paranoid

  2. Wow, Laura, this is superb. I am so moved by your subject matter and awed by your skill here. Having visited facilities like this one, you’ve adeptly brought them and this woman “to life” in your poem. I love your unique take on the prompt–and how you’ve brought awareness to dementia and Alzheimer’s. Your poem should be published widely!

    1. Jennifer – thank you for such generous feedback especially as I was unsure how far this prose poem might stray from your marvellous prompt – its just that nothing else occurred so I wrote quite spontaneously

  3. My mother would not talk for days, seeming to be in some other world, but she would sometimes respond to both poetry and music. I hope her thoughts were as beautiful as this woman’s are. (K)

    1. it is painful to try and reach our loved ones who are lost in their in between world – the arts do seem to be one connection that lasts – perhaps because it touches deep into the emotions so your mother’s sometime responses must have given you some crumbs of connection

  4. You have captured it – EXACTLY – in your poignant and moving poem. In my work with elders (before I became an elder too), I used to look at the photos of their earlier lives, full of tables and chairs, and housefulls of furniture – now reduced to a brush, comb, toothbrush and water bottle…..and the long wait for a relative to appeak at one’s door. Sigh. Brilliantly captured.

    1. your description is so vivid – that reduction to old photos and a hairbrush – so thank you for your appreciation of the poem’s attempt at veracity

  8. Your prose poem resonated with me, Laura, made me tearful, as dementia runs in my family, and the form is perfect for the topic. I witnessed it in my great grandmother, grandfather and mother, and you’ve captured the bewilderment so very well. I especially love the paragraph about tulips, my mother’s and my favourite flowers, and also make me ‘think of a painterly poem with nice rhymes I knew by heart’.

  9. Oh wow, Laura, I am so moved by not only the content but the skillful weaving of poetic lines that remained intact, despite the struggle with this horrible disease. A beautiful yet heartwrenching representation. I do agree with Jennifer that this needs to be shared widely.

    1. thank you Mish for seconding Jennifer and your very uplifting feedback. – the poetry shows that parts of the person remain more intact than others and it does seem that the arts signal that. I’ve seen people reawaken to music they knew and loved and on YT a ballerina doing all the arm movements of a swan lake solo

  11. Greeting the walls every morning is how a better home is made. The whole piece just blew me away, Laura. Thanks.

  12. So poignant. Pictures of children, some are mine they say but I never see them. Reminds me of visiting a beloved aunt in one such place. She always only ever wanted to go home.

  13. A perfect prose poem, Laura, seasoned with poetry quotes and painting such a strong portrait – so moving…

  14. A room full of things I used to have really pushes the idea home. I sometimes feel like that even though I’m still sharp. I hope this fate doesn’t befall me.

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