Old Peoples Home

All are limitory, but each has her ownnuance of damage.  The elite can dress and decent themselves,     are ambulant with a single stick, adroitto read a book all through, or play the slow movements of     easy sonatas. (Yet, perhaps their verycarnal freedom is their spirit's bane: intelligent     of what has happened and why, they are obnoxiousto a glum beyond tears.)  Then come those on wheels, the average     majority, who endure T.

V. and, led bylenient therapists, do community-singing, then     the loners, muttering in Limbo, and lastthe terminally incompetent, as improvident,     unspeakable, impeccable as the plantsthey parody. (Plants may sweat profusely but never     sully themselves.)  One tie, though, unites them: allappeared when the world, though much was awry there, was more     spacious, more comely to look at, it's Old Oneswith an audience and secular station.  Then a child,     in dismay with Mamma, could refuge with Granto be revalued and told a story.  As of now,     we all know what to expect, but their generationis the first to fade like this, not at home but assigned     to a numbered frequent ward, stowed out of conscienceas unpopular luggage.                                        As I ride the subway     to spend half-an-hour with one,

I revisagewho she was in the pomp and sumpture of her hey-day,     when week-end visits were a presumptive joy,not a good work.  Am I cold to wish for a speedy     painless dormition, pray, as I know she prays,that God or Nature will abrupt her earthly function?