Musings: A Column on Local Culture
Breaking the Silence: Voices of Hope
A writer at the Swampscott Senior Center is helping to spread the word on elder abuse.
Maria Mello, writer, painter, naturalist and a regular at the Swampscott Senior Center’s Creative Writing Class for over 10 years, recently put her talents to use to assist in the creation and performance of an original play based on true stories of elder abuse and neglect, titled, Breaking the Silence: Voices of Hope. Mello’s original poem, Afraid, opened the show. The poem, with its soothing rhythms and rhymes, and Mello’s lilting voice, begins by laying out a simple picture of what most of us want in our later years, and then sneaks in another possible outcome--fear. As I grow older all I need Are gentle peace and sunlit days A simple life I want to lead Some time to follow my own ways And not to be afraid. The following …
