"Look Closer SEE ME!"

In the late 70's, I worked for a Hospital Equipment Company in Birmingham England. My colleague, Mike Dunnett, claimed he found the following in a hospital locker.
He wrote this explanation.....

(Found 10 years ago in the hospital locker of an old woman who had just passed away.)


"What do you see, nurse, who do you see?
What are you thinking.... when you look at me:
A crabbed old woman, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes,

Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And always is losing a stocking or shoe."
Is that what you're thinking? Is that who you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse, you're not seeing me.

I'll say who I am as I sit here so still
As I move at your bidding and eat at your will.
Inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells
And now and again my battered heart swells.

I remember the joys, I remember the pain
And I'm loving and living life over again.

I think of the years, all too few, gone too fast
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, nurse.... open and see,
Not a crabbed old woman .... look closer, SEE ME!