Senile Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

Death, disease, pain, weakness,
Difficulty in using limbs, eventual loss -
With increasing frequency
These are my thoughts,
As I travel through my sixty-third year.

When Tilaka told me I am becoming senile,
I kept silent a few times, till one day
I made it clear to her, serious in tone,
It is not pleasant to be told that,
And she has stopped since.

Convinced or not, I don’t know;
Since my last hospitalization
Two years ago, I remember
The pain at the back of right hand
Where the needle remained three days.

I consider myself hugely tolerant
Yet decided that next time,
Would prefer to be ‘poked’ every time
Rather than be inflicted everlasting pain,
As an aging man, losing control on body.

Mind is powerful, can make a heaven of hell
So I train myself to look at pain straight,
And bear it so when the real test comes
I shall not withdraw or whimper: decided
Changing to left hand is no alternative.

Last night my right eye pained on pressing, ;
Unusually, I got up at dark 5: 30 am,
Washed my face with soap, still
To see the swelling on right upper eyelid
Signalling the train of thoughts to resume.

Went early to gym, feeling a little relieved
On the swelling going down
Came back almost to normalcy
But recounted to Tilaka, doing her daily
Feeding of dogs on the street below.

Mother-like, her advice gushed at once:
“It must be a stye, keep blowing on a cloth
And foment your eye: it will be all right;
Is nothing but that: I am telling you:
Do it, and you will soon be all right.”

In the night I had imagined visit to Ophtho,
The one at KEM hospital, and all known names
Of them, and was imagining myself waiting
In a long queue in a dingy room, eyes ‘drop’ped,
In a huge, disorderly, discourteous hospital.

Perhaps she is right that I am becoming senile,
With memory fading, cannot remember faces,
Can’t follow dialogue in English movies,
Make sense of shrill voices, or a temporary swelling -
She says that I come round generally to her view.