Sadly, the remains are but frailties:
crumbling pillars and collapsing pylons;
fragile columns; diminished faculties;
cancerous concrete; corroded irons;
frayed exposure; unravelling dimensions
stripped of the scaffold that prevents collapse.
Footings, as anchored to loose connections,
probabilities reduced to perhaps.
Platforms of understanding turned on edge:
uncertainty – an awkward intrusion;
short-term remedy – with no long-term pledge;
a mortarless mix – dust and dillusion.
. Crumbling columns collapse; ruins remain.
. No rhyming couplet can loosen the strain.

© Tim Grace, 26 April 2013

To the reader: Dementia is a cruel affliction. The brain retires its function and loses its grip on day-to-day realities. Learnt routines are no longer spontaneous, simple sequences are interrupted and confusion increasingly describes the state of mind. As problems compound there’s a step-down effect; delusion and dismantling go hand-in-hand; finally, connections become tenuous and recognition becomes featureless.

To the poet: My father is suffering the slow decline of dementia. In the beginning stages he would read my sonnets with editorial license, holding on to rules but glossing over nuance that could no longer catch his attention. Years on, the crafted string of words are meaningless. His highly analytical brain has lost its refined capacity to decode and decipher. And so, I write about him; the subject of my thoughts.

Unravelling Dimensions