shifting sands

Years Slide by And conversations Around the table turn From hopes and dreams To stories of what has been And still the seasons pass Without asking my permission I find each day slow Each part of the day Morning noon and Night As I pass by The mirror holds a woman I don't recognize Only her eyes But hopes and dreams Boil like the grits I am cooking in my friend's kitchen New Year's Day And the conversation at the table turns Revolves Full circle To what might still be.

So many things are missing Misplaced and it turns out I can live without them Just fine I have ceased wondering Where I put this or that Or whatever happened To some lost thing I don't need to know Each day brings its own Finding and its own loss. So I wander through the hours Days Long moments, short days January Each one a little longer And the sky is blue enough This frozen time To compensate for all the things I've ever lost, and never found.

Life used me up A bit, as I used it My days numbered— How many pages are written for me I slow down, savoring the end Skin is changing Into old lady skin So thin While the thickness of my hide The leather that bonds Heart and soul and mind Is the exact measure That much tougher Mother bird has fledged Maybe it is hard for her too Emptying the nest Maybe it hurts her heart as She sends them out And it isn't the metaphor we think Maybe mother bird is blue Even as she knows it's time Empty There will be no Uplifting end to this Poem That says how the nest will be rebuilt My little birds are flying free Mother bird can find a new mate And hatch some future That is not today's poem Today, whatever page I am on In the story I inhabit The emptiness And aging skin The quiet of a winter afternoon No birds No birds Peace, peace Is the destination

I look down at my Post-holiday gut And say "it's all right." Then I say "It's not all right." I have quit lying to myself. Some things are just not All right And that is All right with me. I don't have to be All right or okay All the time Because I've learned I will make it Through whatever that day's Adventures might be.