A Lonely Sliver
“The wood is dead,” he pointed out
_the windows rimmed with frost;
“those columns there—” he meant the trees—
_“are done and finished, lost.”
My grandfather, whose wisdom, once,
_no argument could shake;
who’d plied his atlas, maps, and tomes
_with knowledge-thirst unslaked;
Now stranded on a shrinking isle
_of waning memory
barraged by ever-greater waves
_of a mercy-spurning sea.
The darkness of illness has so encroached
_it splits apart time’s stream;
severs today from yesterday,
_the instant from history.
It fractures the seasons’ eternal round
_into a lonely sliver;
and whittles nature’s ebb and flow
_down to unending winter.
Yet bleak though the barren world looks,
_bleak though the world may seem,
I know this is not the story’s end:
_appearance belies reality.
“The trees aren’t dead; they just look so—
_but soon, they’ll bud, and leaves
will crowd their branches once again;
_the earth will burst with green.
The grass will spurt, the flowers lift
_their yellow-petaled heads;
the air will warm, we’ll venture out
_into the sun again.”
No fairy tale, no cozy myth—
_but fact, plain and true—
confirmed by each returning year
_as dawn succeeds the dew.
Katie Tencza is a former English teacher who currently tutors for the SAT. She is a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America and resides in New Jersey.
The phrase “a mercy-spurning sea” is unforgettable.
I was particularly taken with the phrase “stranded on a shrinking isle of waning memory” that is beautiful to speak of the elderly who are slowly fading into history.
Thank you both very much.
This poem is based on real comments that my grandfather, who has dementia, made during the winter. He legitimately thought that all the trees were dead. I tried to explain the arrival of spring to him, but he wasn’t believing it. But it was comforting to think that just as I knew that a season that looked lifeless and hopeless would later on be alive and flourishing again, that the same could happen with him.
A sensitive portrait, Katie. It’s especially melancholy when “knowledge-thirst unslaked,” under the influence of dementia, becomes a loss of any thought except incorrect immediate perception. You contrast that with the scientific view of nature your grandfather would certainly have had. Seasonal change is rational and intelligible and confirmed by experience. It may not make him young again, but the promise of going out into the warm sun again is fact. You employ a lovely and unexpected final image to back up that idea with “as dawn succeeds the dew.”
Some great lines, such as ‘a shrinking isle of waning memory’ (which I see Roy also picked out), but the final line was my favourite.
It’s always sad when we lose someone to dementia before we lose them. You’ve expressed this sentiment very tenderly, Katie.
Thank you both very much.
Margaret, I’m glad the “knowledge-thirst unslaked” line came across well! That was the last line I was debating changing before sending this in, but decided to keep it.
In my last comment, I meant to clarify that I had in mind the hope of my grandfather getting to have his own rebirth/renewal in the afterlife. At first I was going to write more stanzas which directly discussed that, but when I wrote the current last line, it felt final, so I just hinted towards the idea instead.
Paul, that expresses the tragedy of dementia so well — losing the person piecemeal while they’re still alive. I’m glad the poem was able to express this in a heartfelt way.