Classic Poem

Old man on the bed
Where do you go
When the lights are dark
And the nurse calls out
Through the door?

You cannot hold your orange juice
And the peas run down your chin
You seem to look right through the walls
Past the TV spewing noise
You cannot hear the endless drone
Of a ringing telephone.

The tubes shoot venom into your heart
Hanging bottled masks to hide your head
White sheeting shroud to cover your loins
There is breath from your lips
But life is long spent
No wonder.

I wish I were there with you
Wherever you go
Old man on the bed
When the lights are dark...

In some dreaming place
There are fields of green
Soft meadows and grassy hills
And there you are walking
With a boy’s careless smile
Your hat in your hand
Your face to the sky
Stopping to smell the flowers
That grow by the way.