This poem "wrote itself" one night as I sat at my computer and I realised later it was about an older woman, maybe suffering from Alzheimer's or paralysed by a stroke, from the view of a caregiver.

When I look into your eyes
I see the pain from deep within,
the confusion and inner turmoil
of an active mind
in a body which frustrates it.
I catch glimpses of an earlier twinkle,
when life was good
and your manner gay;
now, in the twilight of your life,
the copper hair is silvered
and a mist falls over your eyes.
Where is the young girl who ran on the clifftops,
paddled in oceans, picked shells on the shore?
Where is the maiden who courted the young man,
resplendent in uniform, bound for the war?
He who returned to her, shell-shocked and wizened,
who took her to wife, and whose children she bore?
And where is she, that mother, who gave birth to two children,
but whose love had no boundaries, and who craved even more?
She is here, in your mind,
in the pictures that play there,
the memories of all that you've seen and you've done,
and I see her sometimes, in the looks that you give me,
with your mind ever active, and the body you shun.
I feel for your sadness, your independence long taken,
and wish I could grant you, strong limbs, straight and true .
But all I can offer, is respect and assistance
in this twilight existence, I'll stand beside you.