Portrait of a Life

A fellow mech71er, Rajive Johri, a retired President of a leading bank in USA today included this wonderful poem in an email with the following message,

When an old woman died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in Saskatchewan, the nurses going through her meager possessions, found this poem. This little old woman, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this ’anonymous’ poem winging across the Internet.

 

Crabby Old Lady

What do you see nurses?  What do you see?
What are you thinking, when you're looking at me?
A crabby old lady, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles her food, and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice, I do wish you'd try
who seems not to notice, the things that you do.
And forever is losing, a sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will,
with bathing and feeding, a long day to fill.
Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse, you're not looking at me.
 
I'll tell you who I am, as I sit here so still,
as I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I'm a small girl of ten, with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters who love one another
 
A young girl of sixteen with wings on her feet.
Dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet.
A bride soon at twenty my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows that I promised to keep.
 
At Twenty-Five, now I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide a secure happy home.
A woman of thirty my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
 
At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,
but my man is beside me to see I don't mourn.
At fifty, once more, babies play 'round my knee,
again, we know children my husband and me.
 
Dark days are upon me, my husband's now dead.
I look at the future and shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing young of their own.
And I think of the years and the love that I've known.
 
I'm now an old woman and nature is cruel.
'Tis jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles grace and vigor departs.
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.
 
But inside this old carcass a young girl dwells,
and now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys I remember the pain.
I'm loving and living life over again. 
I think of the years, too few, gone too fast.
And accept the fact that but for God nothing can last.

Note: Minor editorial changes were made before posting here

Image from: wiki/File:Thomas_Cole_-_The_Voyage_of_Life_Old_Age,_1842_(National_Gallery_of_Art).jpg