Dreamscape Poem by David Lewis Paget

You woke me, crying out in your sleep
That a part of you had died,
I could hear the birds by the window seat
As they woke and chattered outside,
So I turned and shook you gently
Thinking to ease your troubled mind,
‘I dreamt I'd been to my wake, ' you said,
‘And the folk were so unkind! '

‘It was only a dream, ' I thought to say
But my tongue was swiftly curbed,
You'd slipped so quietly out of the room
And the bed was undisturbed,
I followed, down to the kitchen but
You must have gone outside,
Out by the dear old mulberry bush
I could hear you, as you cried.

Your sister came and she made the tea
You were talking on the phone,
I could hear you in the solarium
So I took my tea alone,
Then I wandered down to the port, to watch
Them load the ships with grain,
And looked for you on the jetty there
But all I could feel was pain.

We've been together for forty years
But something's rearranged,
I think you must be avoiding me
But I love you just the same,
You wave to me from the flower beds
As I sit in the old deckchair,
And read my book in a cosy nook
Then I look, and you're just not there.

You talk to me in my dreams at night
And you say that you love me too,
And we wander hand in hand again
As we always used to do,
But I think that your mind is fading fast
You forget so much today,
But we'll stick together through thick and thin
I'm there for you, come what may.

Your sister summoned the doctor, I
Was out by the kitchen door,
‘I think he's looking for you, my dear,
But we'll fool them, like before.'
She said, ‘He doesn't accept the fact
That my sister fell asleep,
He'll have to be put in a Nursing Home! '
I sit on the step, and weep!

15 October 2012