The Old Are Not Ripe for Death
After my return from an evening ride
Where the nerve kissed the rubber pedal
Shoulders hang to energies across steep gradient
I realized that emotions had shifted their tide
For the chin that hit the ground was a hero’s.
Old Eliphaz no longer crisscrossed on the verandah
But lay mute in a bed whose sheets I had never laid
His rich sunset fairy tales would be lost in his beard
His moustache rose feebly at a war on his tongue
To murmur his olden colloquy but as though in a tube.
His nose grew wider for any airs that blew by it
But his ears were as sharp as the queen thorn of a rose
Seated on a wooden stool in the dark corner of his room
My inexact thoughts were up and down
Like a near-drowned cousin being resuscitated.
For once I sat a million miles away from a world
That called my hero’s bed his death bed
Yet he still fought and breathed.
I walked a billion miles away from a world
Whose nurse called my hero’s condition, “age”
And said that he deserved love as he approaches the edge.
Eliphaz heard that his old age justified his death
Just 79! His eyes couldn’t only see but grieved
Into oceans to drown that world where the old
Were nothing but just off-tree fruits, ripe for death.
His eyes misted thinking of the world where healthcare
Provided only painkillers for the elderly and poor
Struck by the nurse who prescribed love
Devoid of the minimum yard of medical care.
As his sight caught the bends of the iron sheets above him
He sighed at the young who name death beds to be heirs
10 times now counting, 365 days and two leap years
Hospital beds for octogenarians are still called death beds
And all visits to ill grey-haireds are occasions of goodbye.
We can better say “stay” than “goodbye” to the old
Our thoughts can stop to ripen the old for their end
And instead refresh them to flip life to a healthy page
A longer life for the old can mean a longer one for all.
Kansiime Onesmus is a 2020–2021 Global Health Corps fellow and Knowledge Management officer at The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation in Uganda.
Global Health Corps (GHC) is a leadership development organization building the next generation of health equity leaders around the world. All GHC fellows, partners, and supporters are united in a common belief: health is a human right. There is a role for everyone in the movement for health equity. To learn more, visit our website and connect with us on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook.
