Here’s Parky back at home in our backyard garden, thinking about the World Parkinson Congress and jotting down his thoughts and feelings as he prepares to write a sonnet. Sonnets take a lot of work – what with all that iambic pentameter slipping this way and that – and he hopes to crank out a draft leading to a final copy soon! Check back in about a week to see what he’s come up with!
Right now, “mum’s the word” – and he doesn’t mean the chrysanthemums blooming in front of the house!
Update!
Here’s the first draft of his sonnet. Not bad for a raccoon who’s just learning about the human brain! He may continue to refine it, so come back for subsequent drafts.
Parky’s Portland Sonnet
Last week I flew to Portland, Oregon –
My first time at a Parkinson’s convention.
I learned so many things, too much to mention,
And now it’s over. Everybody’s gone –
Returned to sixty countries ‘round the globe.
The doctors, Parkies, therapists, and/or
The caregivers, the researchers, and more,
With new ideas stashed in their frontal lobe.
The frontal lobe’s where short-term mem’ry sparks –
You’ve got to move it quick, to long-term storage,
Or take extensive notes through which you’ll forage
For years to come, in ever-growing arcs.
How strange, that Portland left our brains jam-packed…
The very organ Parkinson’s attacks.
Go Parky!