If I Live to be an Old Man - Poem

Author: Kenneth Nye
Published: 2011/01/20
Category Topic: Disability Poems, Poetry and Prose - Academic Publications

Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main

Synopsis: Poem composed by Kenneth Nye titled If I Live to be an Old Man relating to Parkinsons disease.

Introduction

Main Content

If I live to be an old man

and end up in a wheel chair or bedridden
with parkinson's disease, I will still play basketball with my fellow jocks,
ride my bicycle on beautiful summer mornings in maine
when the traffic is light and I can still hear bobolinks
in the meadow down by the mud flats.

I will still climb katahdin every summer,
take the roaring brook trail up to chimney pond
and the cathedral trail up to the summit
and marvel at the magnificent panorama
laid out below me.

I will still play ball with my beloved dogs,
always using two balls so they will forever
want the one they don't have and
give me the one they do.

I will still pull gum balls out of little kids' ears,
show them how I can catch in my hand
the sound of a plucked silver fork,
carry the sound across the table
and drop it into a goblet.

If I live to be an old man, I expect parkinson's is going to
give me some trouble.
But it will not tell me
how I can and cannot use my time,
and it is
never,
ever
going to tell me I can't dream.

And I'm not.