Letting go

Primarily today’s poem is a reflection the slow process of losing someone to dementia, for example Alzheimer’s. All the things you remember become tales from a strange land for them: strange, and frightening, tales they don’t want to hear and you don’t want to tell them again. The poem also reveals a fear that lingers in the back of my mind – that memory loss will creep into my life, robbing my of the things that make me who I am; that my tales will become and strange and frightening. And that I will forget the people who mean the most to me.

Leaving 

I remember the sound of 

soft crunching as I walked over  

the dried leaves that had been stolen by  

Autumn only to be thrown to the ground. 


I remember the feeling of  

the damp air cool as the sun disappeared 

over the ranges. The loss of warmth  

signaling the end of the summers I had known.  

I remember the scent of  

your perfume, how it hung around  

you like a moon in orbit.  

The bottle sits half-empty  

collecting dust as its contents sour.  


I remember.  

Yes, I remember.  

And although I don't walk in  

that forest anymore,  

or see many of the people from before,  

I can still recall all the details  

and I can't stop remembering  

that you will remember nothing of me.