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Liz... Thanks for sharing your poem - and your talent - with us. I sat there reading with eyes full of tears for you, me, and each of us as your words seemed to say it all. BIG hug at ya... Barb Mallut "Lil_Honey" on the PD Chat [log in to unmask] ---------- From: Parkinson's Information Exchange on behalf of Elizabeth Southwood Sent: Monday, March 03, 1997 11:44 AM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: Poem "HURRY UP, HURRY UP" BY LIZ SOUTHWOOD HURRY UP, HURRY UP My hands are aimless as rags in the wind, my fingers becoming ineffectual as fringe. I used to play the piano - Bach fugues or Chopin, won a box of chocolates once by finding at a baby shower, in record time, the most safety pins buried in a bowl of gleaming, uncooked rice. I crocheted, quilted, with small, even stitches, knitted a warm, wool, striped scarf - crimson, brown, and beige - for my spouse who took for granted, as I did, my prettily-crimped piecrusts, and paintings of roses and a wrought-iron gate. My longhand was as legible as "The Book of Kells" compared to the shriveled-cobweb scrawl I struggle with today, as I try to write a readable check, put paper money in a wallet, clutch a kleenex, take it from a pocket, open my old, gold, heart-shaped locket, pull on white sneaker-socks, shuffle cards, without feeling pressure from inside to hurry up, hurry up. And I waver in the wind when I walk.