A Cranky Old Man (Poem)

(An anonymous poem left by a 92-year-old man who died in an Australian nursing home)

What do you see nurses?                 

     What do you see?

What are you thinking

     when you're looking at me?

A cranky old man,

     not very wise

Uncertain of habit                            

     with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food

     and makes no reply.

When you say in a loud voice          

     'I do wish you'd try!'

Who seems not to notice                  

     the things that you do.

And forever is losing

     a sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not             

     lets you do as you will,

With bathing and feeding     

     the long day to fill?

Is that what you're thinking?

     Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes, nurse   

     you're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am              

     as I sit here so still,

As I do at your bidding,

     as I eat at your will.

I'm a small child of ten

     with a father and mother,

Brothers and sisters

     who love one another

A young boy of Sixteen

     with wings on his feet

Dreaming that soon now

     a lover he'll meet.

A groom soon at twenty

     my heart gives a leap.

Remembering, the vows

     that I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now

     I have young of my own.

Who need me to guide

     and a secure happy home?

A man of thirty

     my young now grown fast,

Bound to each other

     with ties that should last.

At forty, my young sons         

     have grown and are gone,

But my woman is beside me

     to see I don't mourn.

At fifty, once more,

     Babies play 'round my knee,

Again, we know children

     my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me

     my wife is now dead.

I look at the future

     I shudder with dread.

For my young are all rearing

     young of their own.

And I think of the years

     and the love that I've known.

I'm now an old man

     and nature is cruel.

It's jest to make old age

     look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles

     grace and vigor, depart.

There is now a stone

     where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass

     a young man still dwells,

And now and again

     my battered heart swells

I remember the joys

     I remember the pain.

And I'm loving and living

     life over again.

I think of the years, all too few

     gone too fast.

And accept the stark fact

     that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, people

     open and see.

Not a cranky old man

Look closer                     See ME!!

P Michael Biggs

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