The "Autumn Cafe"

[hester_prynne]

I call the dining room
at the rest home,
the "Autumn Cafe".
Wheelchairs surround
the tables,
like gnarled branches on trees.
Occupants, asleep
at their places.
Their bounty has
already come.
Now they wait,
dejected,
like the
beautiful,
woeful,
falling leaves.

[mtmynd]

this made me melancholy.

leaves waiting to fall from the tree shall be looked at more closely.

TY, Hes'

[WIREMAN]

...."those autumn leaves of red and gold"...ya know when I was about 10 I used to deliver the evening star paper to the nursing home....it was a blast...they'd have me in for cookies and ginger ale and some really far out stories......wow hest ya brought back an old memory......thanks....mark

[joel]

Doing my homework again...and this, H, may be my favorite piece you've written (well, it may be my new favorite piece of yours which I have read). The image of those gnarly knees spiderveining their way out from underneath light pink terrycloth housecoats and blue-flannel-plaid bathrobes...well, can you tell it painted me vivid picture?

There is for me something magical about old folks' homes...all that history caged up in one place, babbling on and on for whomever might be able to still hear it...and make sense of it.

I'd move in now if they'd let me...and in my line of work, it would probably save me a gazillion trips. All those able bodies who can't recall who they are...all those minds sharp as tacks as 80, 90, 100 plus who can't walk a step on their own.

What about us poets when we're there in due time? What about us when our best verses come to mind and we can't grasp a pen to scribble it down or type it arthritically out? Or when our brains and hearts converge on finally-gained wisdom that our synapses refuse to pass on to each other?

If there's a place to learn grace and mercy in life, it's gotta be old folks' homes. Or juvenile cancer wards...but even more old folks' homes I think.

H, beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful.