Universal LifeStiles, L.L.C.   ...Overcoming Life's Obstacles

What do you see nurses?

What do you see?

What are you thinking when you are looking at me?

A crabbit old woman not very wise

Uncertain of habit with far away eyes

Who dribbles her food and makes no reply,

When you say in a loud voice “’ do wish you’d try’

Who seems not to notice the things that you do

And forever is losing a stocking or shoe

Who, unresisting or not, lets you do as you will

With bathing and feeding the long day to fill

Is that what you’re thinking? Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes nurse,

You’re not looking at me.

I’ll tell you who I am as I sit here so still

As I use at your bidding, as I eat at your will.

I’m a small child of ten with a father and mother

Brothers and sisters who love one another,

A young girl of sixteen with wings on her feet,

Dreaming that soon now a lover she’ll meet:

A bride soon at twenty my heart gives a leap

Remembering the vows that I promised to keep:

At twenty five now I have young of my own

Who need me to build a secure and happy home.

A young woman of thirty my young now grow fast

Bound to each other with ties that should last:

At forty my young ones now grown will soon be gone

But my man stays beside me to see I don’t mourn

At fifty once more babies play round my knee,

Again we know children my loved one and me,

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead

I look at the future I shudder with dread

For my young ones are all busy rearing young of their own,

And I think of the years and the love I have known

I’m an old woman now and nature is cruel

‘tis her jest to make me age like a fool

The body it crumbles, grace and vigor depart,

There now is a stone where I once had a heart:

But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,

And now and again my battered heart swells,

I remember the joys, I remember the pain,

And I’m lovin and living my life over again

I think of the years all too few – gone too fast,

And accept the stark fact that nothing can last

So open your eyes nurse, open and see

Not a crabbit old woman, look closer-

See Me. 

By: Phyilis McCormack