Hhfields’s Reviews > Selected Poems 2: 1976 - 1986 > Status Update

I read the poem Variations on the Word Sleep. This captures who I want to be. Running through all of space and time protecting everyone from harm and they never know that I was there. " I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary."

I have been reading Five poems For Grandmothers for three days now. My own grandmother has Alzheimer's and my mother is struggling to care for her. Atwood conveys my observations of her decline accurately. My heart broke reading this poem knowing just as my mother cares for her mother so must I care for her one day and watch her wither. I learned my sense duty from my mother. We show deep love through obligation