.
when I was 19
my parents went around the world
leaving
from the San Francisco marina on a freighter
with passenger accommodations
back in those days
when the gang plank had been raised
and the ship was ready to depart
the passengers
would line up at the rail looking down
throwing serpentine
colorful paper streamers
to friends and family on the pier below
we would hold tight to one end
while those we hold dear
held on to their end
of these
slender fragile ribbons
then slowly
almost imperceptibly
the ship began to move away
the paper connections
snapping
one by one
as the steamer headed out into the bay

after fifty five years together
my cancer is incurable
and your memory is fading
which makes me acutely aware
of time circling the drain
running out of the clock
wondering whether
the love of my life
will slip over the horizon
before I am forced to leave the dock
+++
..

.........AFTERWORD — I have been putting off writing DEMENTIA for about six months. Usually when bad things happen they immediately become inspirations, grist for my "poetic observation" mill. As you know I have raked a lot of chestnuts out of the advance prostate cancer fire. But when Billie Barbara was diagnosed with the beginnings of dementia I froze.
.........So far only her short-term memory seems to be effected. Her long-term memory is fine. I mean, she still can remember every thing I ever did wrong for fifty-five years. It's just that she doesn't remember what day it is or who she just talked to on the phone, that sort of thing. And I can't let annoyance creep into my voice when she doesn’t remember or I have to answer the same questions again, or it upsets her. This poem is the only one I have written that Billie will never see.
.........I must have started working on this piece twenty five times but my fear wouldn't let me keep at it. I told a few people about the memory that seemed to explain how I felt, and after I returned home from the hospital I knew it had to be written and the words simply poured out of me in about thirty minutes.
.........Billie Barbara and I don't have much to say to each other these days but we tell each other we love each other all the time and hold hands in bed when we go to sleep. .
.........Years ago there was a wonderful old couple that lived close to us in the Carmel Highlands — Ephraim and Rosa. When Ephraim died at eighty-four Rosa was in the early stages of Alzheimer's and for over a year she would wake each morning and ask for Ephraim only to be told that he had died. For over a year she lost her husband every morning – all the more reason for me not to leave the dock before Billie Barbara slips away.