Aaltoe’s Blog

Ask me things about now

Let’s talk about the things we see

Enjoy me for what I am

Don’t grieve for what I am no longer

Enjoy things with me

Every now and then point out something new

And maybe surprising!

I can find joy with your help

And sometimes even without.

Holding hands is nice

Warm smiles warm me

Hugs tell me of you and of me

I can sometimes go beyond what you see

Help me find those places to go

Help me feel the strength of going

The fascination of those places

These is so much of the best of me still here

Help me to realize it

Help me to share it.

Alzheimer’s Poem

Bill Porter, 2015

Darkness has invaded my being

Glimmers of light randomly appear

Enough to stay the enveloping gloom

But tentative in their shape and strength

Dimmer than the shrouded hope

Tantalizing in their hints 

Of paths that promise and seem almost real.

What forces instigate this darkness,

What will it take 

To illuminate 

To enervate

To erode 

Their presence 

Their priority

Their preemption

Their prevention of my seeing 

What might be.

New fracture in the shoulder
Neither hand up to pianistic challenge
Rebuilding needed
But gained perspective
From further back
Vistas opened
Previously hidden
Hints of energy to look there
To explore
To sort the ridiculous
from the reasonable
The painful
from the the pleasurable
To find the plausible.

Tools enable
us to hold things together
to build a table
or, for a house, a gable.
By themselves tools reminisce
about how they were blamed
for mistakes of the user
and how little credit they received
for repairs to the riven
or to whatever was given.

The collection
reveals specialization
and the range of tasks undertaken
the seeming disarray
speaks to the strong identity
of each member
the sophistication of the user
and the lack of need for an imposed
simplistic order.

The collection implies
readiness for the hasty unexpected
the joy of finding just the right one
for the particular situation.
The static image of the tools
belies the dynamics
of the circumstances of their use
yet conveys it through
the traces of how
they must have been used
— and forges connections
with us.

Well I suppose
The first step might be
To consider from where
Why I was there
What was it like
Why leave it
Where am I now
What direction am I going
What guides me
How will I know I’m at the next place

Well I can’t answer all those questions
Not now anyway
But returning itself has elements of the answer
Perhaps it has been a retreat
Spurred by the pandemic
By restrictions of social contact
By physical disabilities
The shoulders
The hands
Fatigue
By stifling of the creative impulse
By cutting off paths to the imagination
By allowing anxiety to cloud my view

Forces outside oneself
shift perspective
frustrate plans, even planning,
block recourse to one’s nature
as if one had to be someone else
something else
to endure, to exist
let alone thrive.

The cooling grace
of air conditioning
restricts one to its domain.
Unlike the contrast in winter
when entry into the outside cold
is mitigated by warm clothing
and by bodily heat,
no such equivalent conditions
of comfort can be achieved
in a heat wave,
even with recourse
to a breeze, shade,
a deep shadowed glade
or water to swim in
and an umbrella for retreat.

Inside one is left with half a world
in which to seek
the adventures of the mind
the esthetic hillocks and peaks
and the chasms of thought.

(more…)

Thunder
My dog at my feet
So afraid
Requesting reassurance
While I savor each sound
Each journey in rumbling
Sometimes punctuated with a flash of lightning
And in a few seconds
A sharp crack of thunder.
The trash truck
A modest earthly competitor
With noisy barrels, engines, and shouts.
Here then gone.

The stillness amplified
The grayness pervasive
the sense of anticipation heightened
Now an evening jet
With enough sonic sympathy
To remind, even to extend
Nature’s recent recital

A temporal metaphor for an excursion in thought
In territory tethered only to the imagination
Territory that invites
Further exploration
through conjured events
Fictitious figures
Extraordinary places
that give new meaning
To other episodes in life.

Entering the forest
of loving relations.
Neither naive goodwill
nor harried hope
can brighten the scene
saturated in a mist of misunderstanding
and resistance to forgive.

The further I travel
the more difficult to discover
paths of light
that connect the
courts of community;
sound also muffled
impossible to detect affection
mutual caring
self abnegation
in the quest for community;
and to find light that reveals
enough of each
to insure awareness of the other
and to obviate obscurantism
that prevents further appreciation
of the other, their values, their love
their shared obligations and responsibilities.

Increasing darkness
shrouds mutual awareness
damaging the processes
by means of which
distinctive identities can develop that are
mindful of others in the family of groups;
instead, identities carelessly acquired
cast off views and judgments,
as well as the curiosity
to imagine and learn
what may be holding back
the abundant good will
lying behind defensive retreat.

Identity grows in part
Through understanding of difference
I suppose,
Seeing others as different
Seeing oneself as not the same
And having to invent
Some sort of description
To take that into account
Into conception
Into construction of narrative,
To make sense of how one knows,
Or thought one knew what one does
To make sense of how to encounter others
In ways that would-be
Understandable to them
As well as to oneself
That materialize that growing
Sense of identity
Into behaviors and outlooks.

The opportunities to encounter
That define identity
Have dwindled over the last year
Encounters with like minded people
In similar roles
Encounters with others
Where differentiating self is necessary.

But now is an opportunity
To look freshly
To test against personal comfort
As well as predicted success
To refine one’s identity
To construct plausible professional narratives
Consonant with that self definition
In the light of changed circumstances of the world
And loosened strictures on learned behavior.

Active chimes
shafts of sun
punctuating time
fresh winds
occasional soft patter of rain
on my cloth canopy,
a gift of simultaneity.

Release from the restive state
of previous days
imagination freed from fetters
invited to explore.