Old man on the bed <br />Where do you go <br />When the lights are dark <br />And the nurse calls out <br />Through the door? <br /> <br />You cannot hold your orange juice <br />And the peas run down your chin <br />You seem to look right through the walls <br />Past the TV spewing noise <br />You cannot hear the endless drone <br />Of a ringing telephone. <br /> <br />The tubes shoot venom into your heart <br />Hanging bottled masks to hide your head <br />White sheeting shroud to cover your loins <br />There is breath from your lips <br />But life is long spent <br />No wonder. <br /> <br />I wish I were there with you <br />Wherever you go <br />Old man on the bed <br />When the lights are dark... <br /> <br />In some dreaming place <br />There are fields of green <br />Soft meadows and grassy hills <br />And there you are walking <br />With a boy’s careless smile <br />Your hat in your hand <br />Your face to the sky <br />Stopping to smell the flowers <br />That grow by the way.<br /><br />Laurence Overmire<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/old-man-on-the-bed/
