The Rebuke
The old woman lay
on one of several beds
lining the walls
of Stanley hospital,
meant as a place of care
but also a place to die
in Stanley Internment Camp.
The old woman smiled
and reached out her arms
but fearful of this stranger's gargoyle face,
uneasy with the purpose of this unfamiliar place,
I clung even tighter to my mother's neck
and refused this woman reaching out for me.
Then my mother left me there,
alone in a bed at the end of the room,
several beds removed from this woman I feared.
In this place of desperation,
I reflected on the meaning
of the old woman's reaching
and the smile she had beamed
but the woman soon was gone
and young as I was,
sick as I was,
I felt remorse awaken
for having been unkind
to the woman's gentle gesture
and her wish to hold a child.
In time I left the ward
and the loneliness there,
recovered from my ailment
by the care given there,
but the smell that filled the place,
the sick smell of dysentery,
the wretched smell of death,
and knowing I had done a wrong
came with me as well...
stay with me still.
The old woman lay
on one of several beds
lining the walls
of Stanley hospital,
meant as a place of care
but also a place to die
in Stanley Internment Camp.
The old woman smiled
and reached out her arms
but fearful of this stranger's gargoyle face,
uneasy with the purpose of this unfamiliar place,
I clung even tighter to my mother's neck
and refused this woman reaching out for me.
Then my mother left me there,
alone in a bed at the end of the room,
several beds removed from this woman I feared.
In this place of desperation,
I reflected on the meaning
of the old woman's reaching
and the smile she had beamed
but the woman soon was gone
and young as I was,
sick as I was,
I felt remorse awaken
for having been unkind
to the woman's gentle gesture
and her wish to hold a child.
In time I left the ward
and the loneliness there,
recovered from my ailment
by the care given there,
but the smell that filled the place,
the sick smell of dysentery,
the wretched smell of death,
and knowing I had done a wrong
came with me as well...
stay with me still.