Fading

I see the flickering echoes of a

lost past on your befuddled face

as scenes from a life, mostly gone

by, rush too quickly through the

tunnel that is your mind. These

scenes are faces in the windows

of a thundering train, whose wind

blows its sparks into the void of

your cognizance. I see you hoping,

no, longing, that one might drift

down to the dry ground and spark

the raging fires of your recollection.

I ache for you, and fear my future.

Author's Note

Reviews

[SPINNING ON that dizzy ..]

This is painfully wonderful. Your writing takes the reader right to a scene we have all witnessed as we watch someone not be able to put into words, not remember, not know what they do know.... We all see the lines on the faces, we hear the confusion, we feel the loss. We watch as wisdom, health, energy and the vitality just seem to move on by.... Very good write that gave me a little sad lump in my throat.

[jen]

"These
scenes are faces in the windows
of a thundering train"
This and the last line are what did it for me :) I love the whole thing, but these parts are what hit me. We all live through each other along side of each other. Child looking at the parent, and parent looking at the child (I fear for you and my own mind aches).

[Creepy Swine Guy]

Thank you Jenny.

[Creepy Swine Guy]

It was the image of faces in the windows of a passing train, moving just a bit to fast to allow one to recognize them completely, just having the vague feeling that you SHOULD recognize them.

[Kristina Moulaison]

Is that a train I hear in the background? How did you do that? This is painful and wonderful writing! Loved "These
scenes are faces in the windows
of a thundering train" and
"that one might drift
down to the dry ground and spark
the raging fires of your recollection"
Well done!
Have I missed my train? Have you left me standing at the station? Are you careening down the rails trailing words out behind you...and I am running down the tracks after you, trying to scoop them up into my empty pockets? I hope so! :)

[Creepy Swine Guy]

Thank you KSM ... yes, you hear a train. I was able to blend in other sounds using a free sound program called Audacity. It's a fab program.

[Kristina Moulaison]

Oh that''s very cool! I will just imagine you on the train. :) I'm sitting out on the back porch writing. There are actual birds playing in the birdbath. I'm swooning with spring. The train just put me over the edge.

[Creepy Swine Guy]

I am jealous of your birds

[Kristina Moulaison]

I know. It's pretty cool!

[icelandicblue]

My heart bleeds for such richness to be slowly lost while the one losing it is aware it is happening. It is a disease of the heart as much as the mind...I am an advocate for helping to find a cure while currently we can only slow it down. My grandmother died of Alzheimer's, my dad was in a study for 20 years at Boston University and now I have taken his place.

[Creepy Swine Guy]

If people knew how likely it was to touch them ... more people would be as active as you.

[Einstein Noodle]

what a fantastic write says i ... dementias strike so many whose lives are rich with experience and wisdom .. and that most tragic of moments is when they know they are slipping ... and can do nothing ... your poem opens a wound in me .. what a wonderful thing to bring peoples hearts to an empathetic place for so many forgotten ones ..
E.

[Creepy Swine Guy]

Thank you for such kind words, Good Sir Scribe