Tag: elderly

I was Alice’s Aunty Once

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

When I was a teen, I worked in a home for the elderly. One of the old ladies had dementia…

Fourteen years old
And radiating a future
Of fruitful tomorrows
In this graveyard for
The not yet dead
With the old bones
Rattling around in this
Old people’s home
One ear on the
Monotonous drone
Of dead eyed visitors
And one eye on
The steady tock
Of the analogue clock
As death permits
A last cup of tea

They had memories – Once
But these were stolen
And minds were broken
Words come tumbling
Out like retrospective
Dramas spoken
Wartime lovers
Dancing with hope
This hopeless dance
With feet that may not
March next week
As they savour
The last of their rations

I was Alice’s aunty once
As I led her to her
Favourite chair
Skin so parchment thin
Her story was written
In the spiderlike veins
And downy hair
Eyes trusting as a child
That thinks it’s going
To Paris
But is cruelly going
Nowhere decent
Nowhere they could feast
On warm croissants

I wondered
Was this aunt
Loved
And hoped that
I could share a bit
Of my naïve heart
I prayed I could lovingly play
A nurturing movie star
In her world of
Broken dolls and
Tattered teddy bears
Where she was now
The child
And I, the child
Was now
Very grown up
Indeed.

© 2020 Sarah Drury

A New year Ode

Published on by Sarah Drury2 Comments

Well, its New Year, a time when people all around the world are celebrating. A time when people get together, when families and friends unite. But there are many lonely, elderly people who don’t have that privilege and will be sitting at home, alone and lonely. My heart goes out to them. Here is my ‘designed for spoken word’ ode to these people…

She sits alone
Heating has been off since six
Skint again, afraid to heat her home
As the New Year fireworks roar extravagantly on TV
But still, she mustn’t moan
When there are people sleeping out on the freezing streets
Afraid and all alone

It wasn’t always this way
The nights when her terraced home
Was full of life and family
When she shone like an illuminated flash
Of brilliance, when her life of the party would smash
The pinnacles of joy
Acting like the hoi polloi
Not alone

New Year’s Eve
Gathered outside number thirty four
Counting down the moments
Do we will away the year or yearn for something more?
Neighbours gathered in the moonlit street
Family together like some hereditary meet and greet
Moments tick tocking, the sound echoing in the vaults of time
Excitement reaches a crescendo as Big Ben sounds his infamous chime
Auld Acquaintance possesses our being
As song consumes our passionate bones
And you can hear the ringing of the messages of cheer
The loved ones at the end of the telephone
And the ship horns sing out into the dead of the night
And the world is ok and the universe is alright.

But she sits alone
Taking in the happiness on the TV screen
Saying it’s ok, the family are just busy, they’re not being mean.
And she raises a glass to her husband, dead for many years
And time has healed her wounds, and love has salved her tears
And she waits for the phonecall to prove someone cares
But the phone never rings, and there goes another year
It could be much worse
But she mustn’t moan
After all, her family hadn’t fled
Her family had just flown.

©2019 Sarah Drury
photo credit: BBC