Kindness Of Strangers Poem by Raj Arumugam

On my eighty-fifth birthday
(which was ages ago)
my various children came to visit me
And soon they wanted to talk
about Alzheimer's

So I asked each to recite
his or her name, place of work
one another's favourite food
and other such questions of memory
and then I declared, triumphantly:
"None of you seems to suffer Alzheimer's"

They smiled and one said:
"It's you
we are concerned about"

Oh, I was certainly moved,
certainly touched, though I found it strange
that such perfect strangers should show
such intimate concern for me

The world is certainly much better
than what I remember of it