Graphic by Billie
I have posted here years ago. I saved a poem sent to me by an old classmate. We are now 80.
JUST AN “OLD MAN”? **
When an old Man died in the geriatric ward of a small hospital near Dundee, Scotland, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.
One nurse took her copy to Ireland. The old Man’s sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News
Magazine of the North Ireland Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent,
poem. And this little old Scottish Man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this “anonymous” poem winging
across the Internet:
** Crabby Old man **
What do you see, nurses?
What do you see?
What are you thinking
When you’re looking at me?
A crabby 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 stocking 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 man 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’s 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 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;
‘Tis jest to make old age
Look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles,
Strength 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 crabby old man;
Look closer . . . see ME!!
Remember this poem when you next meet an old person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within. We will
all, one day, be there, too!
Thank you for the beautiful new thread, Amy!
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