Dementia with a Loop
Dr. Lakshmi Prasad Dhakal
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Near by the senile
Closer by the uncertain
Wiped of wisdom
Deprived of gesture
Neither the faith
Nor the horror
Perplexed
By own helplessness
Lost in the world
Untravelled by others
I saw them with wide-open eyes.
Projecting themselves
As devastated
Giving impression of
Loss of love, loss of faith
Loss of everything
This is what I think
Not knowing what they think.
Submerged in darkness
Around complexities
Evidences linking to practice
Building my own strategies
How forgetful I am grown
Of my memory
180 days are bygone
With brain full of memories
Lost, yet bright, I am gone.
[For 6 months, I did an internship at Foundation Geriant, in North Holland. The internship is focused on diagnosis and management of dementia. Dementia as a disease, reminds me to acknowledge, what Shakespeare wrote, “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”. This poem has been read during my farewell program.- Poet]