Former house of the local GP
or new
build
150 years separation.
Steps
and narrow passages
lifts
and smells.
of cleaning agent
and
dinner;
Urine stained, soaked carpets,
dim lights that cast no shadow in the bedroom
as
Older person
Man or woman
sits
silently
Waiting.
Time is relative to our age;
the older we are,
the faster it shifts.
As a child during summertime – at least, in the 70’s it seemed infinite,
Now, in middle age it is harried,
By the dawn of my senescence it will surely pass so quickly
that
at the point of remembering their names,
of the carer, visitor or next-door neighbour,
It is over.
And this, a blessing and a curse,
For is time not life?
Is life not experience,
The appreciation of being?
And yet, a blessing;
As who enjoys decline, who values the falling-apart?
Nevertheless,
There is the moment.
In now.
This, the essence of Mindfulness.
Of Being
This is the breath,
The smile,
The eye contact that goes
Inside.
And you think,
Bricks and mortar,
Clocking on and off,
Uniforms and cautionary tales.
How often is it realised,
The most precious,
The most vulnerable,
are beyond time,
are eternal?
Dr Rod’s Odd Blog (almondemotion) 
Your prose-poem speaks realms. As does the painting below. I hope I never get to sit in those chairs, but hope the good single precious moment can stay with me.
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Am sure no one plans for the moment when they are the one sitting there.
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No, I’m sure. That said, I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently, having had a ‘close shave’ a few weeks ago when I couldn’t breathe. I think there are milestones in ones life, to do with health, when one sort of pulls up and has to think.
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This blog verse is so very moving and so very true. So many local care facilities , visited in the first decade and a half of this century, met the description in the early stanzas.
The analysis of living and realising in the moment ,of residents, as Mindfulness , is just so right and suddenly so obvious , now you point it out!
But the simplicity, the beauty and the truth of the last 5 lines, just unsurpassable.
A modern blueprint of the person-centred understanding.
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