Shepard and Shadow

My yesterday did not exist at all;
tomorrow an enigma, while today
I wonder as I while the hours away
if any visitor should come to call.
But deep in the miasma of my mind,
there lurks the phantom of what once had been’
– a hazy image on a wrinkled screen –
frustrating vision less and less defined.
So, while my shepherd cossets me with smiles
I shadow him – his absence to prevent,
I strew the freezer’s contents on the tiles
or some such wilful act ambivalent.
His smothered angst I barely understand,
but child-like, dog his steps and squeeze his hand.

(August 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]