Oma and Opa (Version #6)
They have escaped the holocaust.
Some of their family did not.
She defeated melanoma.
He had tongue surgery.
She developed shingles.
He had open heart surgery.
She lost eye sight in one eye years ago.
He had a stroke and has a pacemaker that keeps ticking.
A million other things happened during their lives.
The sicknesses, the deaths, the anguish, the pain.
The happiness, the births, the utopia, the pleasure.
She was an EEG technician for years.
He was a tailor and served in the war.
They are disintegrating before my eyes.
With their black and blue marks. Their bloody nicks. And drooping skin.
Their liver spots, sun spots, cancer spots and hairy spots.
He now farts in my presence.
She wears a diaper and talks to me about crapping in it.
Their breath needs freshening.
They forget. They get lost.
They both no longer have their teeth.
They have bad hearing and bad understanding.
They are fragile to the touch and to the wind.
Bony and white and short and small and thin.
They both have fallen, but never out of love.
But as much as they decay before my eyes.
My love for them is stronger than anything.
I love them dearly. Forever.
And I will have the warmest eulogy when the time comes.
But is certainly has not come yet.
© 2004 David Greg Harth
04.12.09.01:08:24@296NYC
November & December
Bronx & Manhattan
Hospital Observing