The Old Memory

Another entry for the recent Junior Poetry Prize. This is by Catherine Butt from Primary (who was awarded a Junior Scholarship last week):

The Old Memory

The rain attacked the window furiously

the day she left

It was a Saturday

A day usually full to the brim

With happiness, maybe sunshine.

But not that day:

Nurses ran back and forth

Their sad faces digging a hole in my chest,

Deeper and deeper

Filling it with tears.

Doctors screamed upsetting words

That deafened me,

Filling my ears with painful sounds

That made me want to

Curl up and disappear.

She lay in the vibrant cot

Slipping in and out of consciousness.

Time was running out,

It was nearly time for her to go.

She passed so quietly

that when it was over

it didn't seem right

That she was gone from our lives.

She may have been old,

She may have been deaf

But she broke our family chain

With her untimely death.