Alzheimer’s Poetry Project

Stage I
It starts with leaving the stove on,
strange things in the icebox,
and then we can’t remember
how to get home.
On Tuesdays, I read classic poetry to senior citizens with Alzheimer’s disease.
I have seen people remember words and lines that they learned as a child.
One of our regulars, Marty,
is held together by
a flannel shirt and suspenders.
“ Do I know you ,” he asks, “ or do I owe you money ?”
I have been visiting this retirement community for over a year.
I hold his hand and guide him across the tile like a finger tracing small print.
We form a circle,
eye contact is important
and I’m not afraid to touch my audience,
as I re- introduce myself.
Stage II
“I shot an arrow into the air,
it fell to earth, I knew not where”
Some cannot remember the names of their children that dropped them off here.
But, they can remember a poem by Longfellow from beginning to end.
Sometimes, they ask things like
Who wrote that poem?
What is my name?
When can I go home?
and we tell them as much as we can.
Sometimes, I get asked to dance.
My beatbox is not Gene Krupa, and this ain’t no ice cream social,
so we get down:
Tyger, Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night.
What immortal hand or eye,
could frame thy fearful symmetry?
If they don’t know the poem, we at least get smiles and remember why we are here.
Stage III
I have seen miracles come in the form of
Ben Jonson,
Christopher Marlowe,
and Edgar Allen Poe.
What other memories sleep inside our skulls?
If I forget my wife’s name, will I still remember the text I read as a child?
Tonight, our voices will follow wheelchairs and oxygen tanks like shadows.
Stage IV
After reading “On His Blindness” by John Milton,
Marty says he doesn’t want to stand and wait anymore.
Just as he can’t remember the code to the security door,
the grass painted on the facility’s walls
doesn’t grow, doesn’t change, doesn’t support life.
Marty whispers, “Please, don’t forget me.”
And I can’t muster enough courage to look him in the eye.
Poets are not caregivers, grim reapers, saints, or doctors.
I have seen nurses lift spirits just as often as they have to roll out bodies.
And there are times that I wish I could forget things I have seen.
And although poetry will never cure this disease, we have learned:
Poetry is the ignition on a John Deere tractor,
the smell of pumpkin pie,
or remembering what eye contact from an attractive stranger feels like.
Poetry lives within us, but we are caged memory.