Writing the Brilliant Day
For the many years I have been a teaching artist with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, it has been my privilege to gather with these older adults. They are often the ones who teach me about what it means to navigate through health decline and to struggle with memories but find meaning, light and wisdom in a day. My father had Parkinson’s with dementia and my mother experienced arterial dementia. They were both brilliant, vital, curious people. I learned so much from them about finding what is brilliant in a day.
Here are some of the beautiful words shared by those in assisted living, adult day and memory care where I have had the privilege to hear their words.
What We Learn from the Fish
VOAMN’s Mpls Park Center Hmong Day Elders poets. As part of APP-MN’s Naming the Artist Within project.
They live where it is
bright and clear and calm
They bring me memories of home
to streams where fish move gently,
slip through waters
We have a song
about a boy and girl dating
They sing to one another
of the fish under the water
a song of love and friendship
They are friendly
and mystery too
how they survive,
how they live and eat
beneath the water
but there they are free
swim back and forth
under the sun
no worries
An old folk tale says:
A father is old and sick and dying
He has two sons who are not married
They ask him
How do we survive without you father?
The father says- Nothing in life is easy,
But like the fish–
You have to live all the way to the top
And dip all the way down to the bottom
The Art of Being a Turtle, The Art of Being a Bird
VOAMN’s Mpls Park Center Hmong Day Elders poets. As part of APP-MN’s Naming the Artist Within project.
I walk like a turtle,
very carefully
I like to be in the water
and swim like a turtle
In your old age
you move slow like a turtle
You are lazy like a turtle
and you can hide
When I am a bird
I am back in Laos
I fly in the sky
I see everything
And nobody bothers me
When I am sad or lonely
I can fly high
I can see what I want to see
And feel what I want to feel
I am a green bird
I fly to the farmers and sing
So they know when they can go home
from their day in the fields
I am a pigeon
I can fly above
And gather below
and walk
with my friends
I can sing
I can fly
I am a mynah
I can talk
with a human tongue
Being a bird is freedom.
In Our Song
By the poets of Arbors and Ridges and Ebenezer Child Care
We have apple seeds, daisies, roses and violets
Sunshine, especially right now
ABCD and Let It Go
Cats take a bath, dogs that need a bone
The happiness of being together
Our favorite part of the day
Eating ice cream, raining tacos
In our song we have sun and animals and the moon
Moon, luna, bellaluna, loon
The stars spring with wing
Frog time, rhyme time
Fun in the sun, rain in the lane
Super worms, super wrong, super strong
In our song we have colors, rainbows
Make it bright, bright, bright white light
Our hearts inside us like valentines
Our hearts pump with joy
Our hearts pump with love
The Journey
From the poets of the Orchards in Minnetonka
The journey of all of us considering what we were going to be
When we grew up and where we ended up
And that is the way it works
The journey of stories
The journey of the arts
The journey of poetry
The journey of imagination
Keep Going
From the poets of Harbor Crossing - White Bear Lake
Anytime you can make a change
It might be beautiful
If you move quickly, you can get it
And if you don’t – keep going
How to hope to break through the conditions of any confinement
From the writers of Heritage in St Paul
How to hope to break through the conditions of any confinement
to still soar upward into sunlight,
refracting each to form a trail of rainbows.
Do we march boldly into the modern world
Or do stay and revere the past? Or can we do both?
Why are we lonely today?
We need to maintain our connections
The ties that bind us
How we keep in touch
The poems of granddaughters
The I remember sense of serenity
The I remember signs of significance
Looking for where answers might be
Maybe they are in all of our songs