Original Hope
One borrows time not to be left out.
Been in the pattern of sun—secure, re-creating.
One needs one thing.
One father is left with new limits, but one
father is left. This repeat is filled with above and below.
(Do you understand that it won't cease?)
Every hour compared to dozens of previous
hours and angers, and the daughters post pictures
of vanishing. Such is a comfort.
One agrees to ask for nothing.
Under time lives silence.
Copyright © 2017 by Lauren Camp. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 26, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
“In late 2015, my father was diagnosed with ‘moderate stage dementia, most likely Alzheimer’s.’ Anyone who has experience with this disease learns, sometimes again and again, to return to this hour, this moment, today. Rather than focus on the continual losses, or ask how much further there is to fall, you are reminded to reaffirm the entire picture of now, a now in exploded perspective, a now outside the lines of past or future.”
—Lauren Camp
Lauren Camp
Lauren Camp is the author, most recently, of An Eye in Each Square (River River Books, 2023) and Worn Smooth Between Devourings (NYQ Books, 2023).