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?