I began volunteering as a caregiver at Clarebridge Hall, Brookdale Assisted Living, in the early months of 2010. I spent three mornings a week attending to seniors with Alzheimer’s and dementia, leading their morning exercise, reading poetry, talking to them, singing, engaging in reading the Bible and painting. As we dipped bird houses, trees and animals in hues of blue, red and green, they animated with previously unseen joy and laughter.
One senior remembered her past as a music teacher, another smiled and bobbed her head. Although in entirety, they didn’t understand what I was saying, they did catch seedlings of hope and thought from my rolling words.
I was by their side as they ate lunch, as I fed them mashed potatoes, wiped the dripping gravy from their chin, scooped custard into their mouths.
They reminded me of my grandmother in India, then also ailing from dementia. She would hold my hand in anticipation, open her mouth in an “O” and tilt her head, asking for more. One person twitched as I touched and stroked her, making me believe that kindness goes a long way in caring.
In this poem, “The Magnolia Beckons,” I draw a parallel between a growing, flourishing, then aging magnolia tree and grandma Jade. Both grow in the sunshine, sing to the skies, bear offspring, their leaves and locks as though performing a soliloquy. Enjoy the poem and as you read it, try to personify nature and elevate humanity to higher heavens.
The Magnolia Beckons
Grandma Jade limps with her walking stick
down the pebbled driveway,
her bald head wrapped in a faded batik bandana.
She picks pine cones, plucks marigolds,
gives water to the kitten,
then dawdles away into her living room.
Dwindled by dementia,
she answers the doorbell to the mailman,
opens her mouth to say thank you,
but bubbles of saliva come in the way.
I feed her roast beef and potatoes,
the gravy dribbles down her chin.
She swats away the fork,
slaps my dangling earring.
Halfway down the white piano keys,
her fingers shiver, voice shrills.
she tilts her head,
points at the ceiling to the lonely bulb,
then looks down the grooves of the cherry floor
as I sing my song The Magnolia Beckons.
In eighty-seven years of worthy bloom
she stands tall and still, births bright white blossoms,
sings under the merry skies,
her glistening locks performing a soliloquy.
Under the reverie of velvet clouds,
sun rays bounce off the green spectacle.
A lemony fragrance raptures,
captures her beauty
as she nods.
Now, gnarled and woody
in want of wisps of thought
to lift a withered mind, she twitches
as the breeze touches her freckled skin.
Grandma Jade grasps my hand,
opens her mouth in an O.
A fading green lament,
she sheds bits of life;
her falling leaves
whisk and settle
on beds of calm earth.
Born in Mumbai, India, Aruna Gurumurthy is a creative thinker, author, and poet. She has published seven books of poetry since 2015, her recent collection, a penning of love and motherhood that she’s read to children and seniors. Her poems appear in Bellevue Literary Review, storySouth, The Penwood Review, Redheaded Stepchild Magazine and others. Aruna was the runner-up for the 2022 Randall Jarrel Poetry Prize and a semifinalist in the 2022 and 2023 James Applewhite Poetry Prize. Aruna lives with her loving family in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and brings change in the world, one poem at a time. You can find more of her work here.
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