*****

Recorded Reading (3:08): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nd5b22t42nfgd7x379tqh/Soon-I-Will-be-Sixty-Five.mp3?rlkey=fk2vzotcn0a5dft47ohdfzg72&dl=0

*****

Soon I Will be Sixty Five

Soon I will have sixty five years
Of this lifetime known:
How far I’ve wandered in that time
How much I’ve learned, how much I’ve grown!

When I look back those decades on
What reminiscence comes to me
What patterns from them now emerge
What wisdoms drawn therefrom may be?

From heartbreaks by the handful
From plangent tragedy
From moments full of wonder
From love’s sweet ecstasy

From all the sacrifice and the
Rewards of parenthood
From myst’ries pondered long and late
Perhaps — a little — understood

From moments spent in nature’s peace
Nor yet in city sprawl
From sprinting to a finish
Or having been slowed to a crawl

From unrewarding victory
To apparent defeat
When looked at from its nether side
Turns out surprising sweet

From work until it seems
Work is the only thing I know
Yet of it seem to have
No lucre as evidence show

To effortless agape word
Received as a lifesaving gift
By those whose new reality
It promises to lift

From times I thought this poet
Never then again might see
Any smile acceptance of
Respectable society

To moments of the highest honor
Paid by world authority
Of the Divine, oh, vouchsafed
To humbly astonished me

What have I learned along this road
What do I see, what do I know
Now that it seems reas’nable
I in a little wisdom go?

What do I know? Why nothing!
What, my good friend, about you?
Was there anything in this world
You can say you absolutely knew?

What was the second question —
On this path what do I see?
I see a light-filled Dawning
Coming swiftly for humanity

And, first of that shortlist of questions
On the path, what have I learned?
Many are the insights
And conjectures I have earned

So many they may ne’er be spoke
But must at good length written be
In thousands of poems
Which constitute my legacy

*****

Until removal of the stalker/targeter/vandal/arsonist following her allows her to approach any landlord ~ even for a private parking space ~ and to begin once again to create professional connections and to rebuild her life, this poet presently lives homeless and at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

Arts patrons may visit http://www.UgiftABLE.com , using code #72D-31S, or choose to send a personal check to the poet’s ABLE account. It takes about two weeks for the poet to be notified of your patronage.

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