© roy ballard 2012


Alzheimer's
I met him in the garden where the roses grow.
He stole away so secretly, so silently and slow.
Though now he can't remember me he smiles and says hallo
for the simple, social graces are the last to go.

The ivy and the bramble, the sharp and peevish sloe
are equal to the roses in the hoar frost and the snow
and summer turns to winter when they creep and overgrow
the roses in the garden that you used to know.