All are limitory, but each has her own <br />nuance of damage. The elite can dress and decent themselves, <br /> are ambulant with a single stick, adroit <br />to read a book all through, or play the slow movements of <br /> easy sonatas. (Yet, perhaps their very <br />carnal freedom is their spirit's bane: intelligent <br /> of what has happened and why, they are obnoxious <br />to a glum beyond tears.) Then come those on wheels, the average <br /> majority, who endure T.V. and, led by <br />lenient therapists, do community-singing, then <br /> the loners, muttering in Limbo, and last <br />the terminally incompetent, as improvident, <br /> unspeakable, impeccable as the plants <br />they parody. (Plants may sweat profusely but never <br /> sully themselves.) One tie, though, unites them: all <br />appeared when the world, though much was awry there, was more <br /> spacious, more comely to look at, it's Old Ones <br />with an audience and secular station. Then a child, <br /> in dismay with Mamma, could refuge with Gran <br />to be revalued and told a story. As of now, <br /> we all know what to expect, but their generation <br />is the first to fade like this, not at home but assigned <br /> to a numbered frequent ward, stowed out of conscience <br />as unpopular luggage. <br /> As I ride the subway <br /> to spend half-an-hour with one, I revisage <br />who she was in the pomp and sumpture of her hey-day, <br /> when week-end visits were a presumptive joy, <br />not a good work. Am I cold to wish for a speedy <br /> painless dormition, pray, as I know she prays, <br />that God or Nature will abrupt her earthly function?<br /><br />W.H. Auden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/old-people-s-home/
