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Unravelling Time
(For my mother lost to Alzheimers)

The knot that holds all my days together
is coming unravelled
and all the roads I have travelled
are separating, dispersing
and fading into forgotten days;
and all the ways of remembering
are dismembering themselves
like limbs lost in an accident,
scattering across the landscape
of a forgetful mind. 

I wonder if the transition into oblivion
will be painless.
Will I know how to go 
“gentle into that goodnight”
and slow the pace, concede the race
allowing amnesia to be my blanket?

Or will I fight, as the poet directed, 
for a reprieve, for more days 
to learn new ways to build a wall 
and forestall the unwanted invasion
of my wandering senses. 

It will be a prison without walls or wardens
yet when I am finally lost I will still be me.
Until then, I will be my own gatekeeper
while I am still free - 
and I can dream of better days.



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