THE TERROR OF THE RESIDENTIAL HOME

Visiting the old peoples' residential home
Fills me with a kind of dread.
Walking along the passageway: 
A smell I can't quite describe.
Doors to rooms are left open or ajar.
Revealing an elderly person in bed
Immobile, watching television
(Though I can never be sure
If they're watching
Or whether the television
Is just background noise to them).
An alarm sounds, or a moan:
These people walk along
The passageways,
Often using walking frames
Some not knowing quite
Where they are
Or what day of the week it is
(And one day must seem much
Like any other to them).
Most terrifying to me though 
Are the "confrontations"
Between the elderly, frail,
And sometimes confused,
And the kindly young nurses
For each must view the other
As in a distorted mirror:
The older seeing the nurse
And being reminded of
What once they were,
(If they can remember)
And the nurse seeing in
The face of the other
What they might
One day become:
I see this and it
Sends shivers down my spine.
The elderly- and often widowed
Have lost what the nurses have:
And what the nurses will lose
As the years go by:
Youth, strength, mobility, agility
And in some cases faculties,
They are reduced then to living
In rooms where the remnants
Of their younger days
Are on display
As photographs in frames.
They are visited by family,
Checked on by nurses
Several times daily.
Provided with food, drink
And medication.
I suppose a relief of sorts
May well be provided by
Visits from grandchildren
Or great grandchildren
Who will play, draw, chuckle
Or talk contentedly:
When these old people go
Perhaps the last thing
They will remember is
That they have left
A happy legacy.

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