Creative Writing Corner – featuring Edith Samuels

Each week, many of our residents meet for Creative Writing Group with Lisa McKenzie. The class offers a creative outlet and the opportunity to flex their writing muscles.

This month, we’d like to highlight a poem written by resident Edith Samuels, which tackles the troubling subject of Alzheimer’s disease.

Introducing the Eradicator

There he is

The faceless, hooded sorcerer

Cloaked in his flowing cape

Thick and black

As a moonless, starless night.

He moves imperceptibly at first

Like a specter, nearly invisible

Selecting his unsuspecting subjects

Seemingly at random.

Silently, surreptitiously

Without flourish or abracadabra

He makes their memories vanish

One by one by one.

Slowly, he grows more adept

With sleight of hand

Erasing words and thoughts

Ultimately smothering

Words and thoughts and memories completely

In the folds of his shroud-like cape,

Transforming them into the disappeared

Never to return.

Where do they go?

Does he have secret deep pockets

Concealed in the lining of that capacious cape

Where he collects and hide them?

Oh, he is patient.

He bides his time.

He grows

He expands

Relentless and wily

Until there is nothing left

But him.

Nothing stops him.

Not hate

Not even love.

He always wins.

At least, for now.

The Kenwood Writing Circle at one of their weekly meetings.

The Kenwood Writing Circle at one of their weekly meetings.