In a chair beside the window father <br />With a straight back, the men playing in white <br />Are as mayflies on the great pond rather <br />On the dull skein of his dreaming sight <br />And the family are gathered quiet <br />In the darkened recesses of his thoughts <br />And they menace him with dread claw and bite <br />‘til a sad spasm shows that he has fought; <br />A strong cable ties the brain together <br />Taut as the column holding legs and back <br />But when it goes it has gone forever <br />Freewheeling like a car whose handbrakes snapped <br />Heavily, dangerously, unrestrained, <br />Charging at windmills on some Spanish plain.<br /><br />Christopher Woodall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-alzheimers/
