Every Day A New Mourning Poem by Lynn W. Petty

Considered once a creative man, whose mind
Was charged with life and learning, now at 86,
He sits and looks away in fleeting recollection.
Each day, like a dark shade of mildew,
This thief of memory covers more
The brilliance of his mind.
Unaware of yesterday, oblivious of tomorrow,
He sits in limbo, lost in the night of dementia,
That obscure land between the extinction of his faculties,
And the significance of his existence,
He asks again, the question asked before.
"Where is my brother? "
"He is gone, " she said, "He is dead."
Each time, in grief, he is momentarily satisfied,
Until the drift of mind recurs again, and asks
The same as asked before. With moaning spirit,
He is left to weep and grieve anew.
Seeking a somewhere out of nowhere,
He enters into the gaping jaws of nothingness,
And disappears.