An Alzheimer's evening sonnet:

Childhood, early sixties, less populated times, less a flurry

of all that could be got, more a dance, a release, the night skies

bewildered the innocent mind as if each twinkling star,

each marauding nebulae, was a whisper from gods long lost

in time’s funnel to follow them into the dark and discover

the source of light; my sister and I, dizzy from whirling

because the atoms in our bodies demanded movement,

would fall to the grass, the crickets serenading the whole night,

and stare up at numerous stars so bright: now I have lost the gods

and so many humans fill this city, the stars appear less, dwindled,

shrunken into themselves, old star-men and old star- women

twitching, scrambling for memories of those faraway days

while fearful, lost in the terror of the bewildering present

and above their grey heads the stars fade further from view.