Mind Over Matter: Sometimes Not

The offering for today serves as an introduction to tomorrow’s post which will explore in more detail the brain and physiology of humans and, perhaps, strangely juxtaposed, the physicality of plant life. But tonight touches on a more personal note. I will let the poem speak for itself, but I do want to make it clear that this poem is just that, a poem, and in reality there is a huge difference between dementia, especially late stage, and Alzheimer’s disease and those of all ages who suffer from regular bouts of panic attacks. Everybody’s different. This is just a poem:

Panic

by Nicole Speulda

It happened after Nana died
about a year after,
after the cards stopped coming
flowers dried and hanging on the walls,
after others began to forget she was gone.

My grandfather broke from soft sleep
and shook, eyelids beating
to the quickened drum of his heart,
convinced of its constriction
and eminent conviction
to take his pulse of life.

Some say his mind is lost
waiting for the body
to fold into its loose skin
like a paper swan bending
into the crease of a page of a book.

But I think somewhere he’s sound
in body and age, and
isn’t that more a panic attack,
the bony echo of one and one less,
a sign of loneliness?