It is Time
20th February2024

Cut off from cognition my mother,
the remnants of her thinking frustrated and exasperated,
there without context, connection, or sequence,
what do you do with a handful of threads cut too short,
…other than to look at them …and despair.

And I sense,
that she senses,
that it is happening,
she knows when she makes mistakes,
and is aware that she is in a precarious form of trouble deep,
she cannot recall from where it came,
no longer knows when it started,
but she feels it’s ominous dark presence there,
and is aware it is getting deeper and deeper,
worse, and worse.

In her remnants there is beauty there also shining still,
her purity of soul,
her wanting to find humour in the world and to laugh with it,
wanting to understand and interact she fills in small talk,
with go to phrases as she has always done,
but she knows from the silences she often receives that they are now,
mostly not right,
…only now the stakes now are higher,
and as the straws of reality around her slip through her fingers,
and the silences between the mistakes grow,
they in turn allow space for more menacing conversations,
that let’s face it, could have already happened,
she knows this precariousness it is not good, it is not right,
she knows in fact that it is very… very bad.

My brother is right in that there is not much of the mum we knew left in there,
but I see her, and I know it is her,
different but still with her gentle ways,
and caring nature,
in shopping centres she seeks out children to say hello to,
wanting love and connection,
like it used to be,
and I can also see the confusion and pleading in her eyes,
when she senses the mothers of the children she approaches are uncomfortable with her,
unconsciously moving to protect their little ones,
from the advances of this strange woman.

And so in her remnants she continues to search,
ravaged and incapacitated,
she busies herself by picking up lint,
and picking apart the grass in the lawn,
and larger and larger the holes grow,
much to my father’s exasperation,
…at things larger than a simple lawn I expect,
the thinking of generations harder,
making themselves known,
through expectations in behaviour,
haloed with shame.

This is her field of broken glass,
a world cutting in reflection, and refraction,
and still through all that,
this is still Carolyn, different but the same,
and it causes me to think,
and in thinking,

I know,

…that she did not deserve this,
…this ultimate betrayal,
…of a humble, loving, feeling,
…person,
…a mother.

Still Life with Bread.