Forty-Five

Forty-Five

                

She can still scratch the thin film between this life and the one before,

and she has stopped negotiating with space about her size.

She recognizes each day is a lottery win

       the right numbers (now) in the right combination (today);

The luck was that she could still read the ticket she discarded

before the draw. Once she ironed out the wrinkles.

She nods when the stars speak

“She is infinitely small. The universe, infinite.”

Summer has just ended and gravity still ignores dust;

the driest, brownest leaves; the winged seeds

(weeds find life this Autumn too);

and for now, her –                                                                                                

mostly.

This year she would still bet on weather over gravity,

because for now,
the wind still howls as though it knows
she is still listening.

And time?

It breathes the seasons she ran through like a sprinkler.

 She nods when the meteors respond

“She is finite. The universe, intimate.”

Small discrepancies

(the parentheticals between her brows, for example)

acute metaphors for the time between book-ended years.

She knows she heard the seasons blink when she called back

“There is so much more to learn."

Now, the universe nods.

               ~Mari Nichols-Haining


Related:  Fifteen and Forty