People

Confabulation borne, sights sought in thought
tumble, erratic, from her wandering mind,
people by ‘people’ of the phantom kind,
with strange embroidered fiction, finely wrought.
Thus, Prospero’s immortal words are shown
still to be cogent, ‘spite the passing years,
for ‘into thin air’ surely they are blown –
those ‘people’ whose existence she declares.
And though as carers we are wisely taught
to cope, expect and even rationalise
her ‘people’ nonsense; when it grates we ought
to quell our angst with calm – though tempers rise.
But when, before her husband, she avers
he isn’t there at all – what’s left but tears!

(November 2018)
Author – Mr John Burman

[Author’s note: These sonnets chronicle the inevitable and wretched decline in my wife’s cognitive function due to Vascular Dementia from my viewpoint as her loving carer. JHB]