Category: aging

Forgive the Dance

Please forgive the dance,
but it is what I do –
one step forward,
then slide back,
shuffle and lose the rhythm
and start again.

Always reaching forward –
heart securely tucked in place –
but there is something embedded,
cellular – that invites the struggle

and so…I dance –
yesterday a warrior,
today the fool,
tomorrow only knows

multi-faceted,
roughly cut,
a gem
of an undefined hue,
I will always try again.

(Forgive the Dance first appeared on One Woman’s Quest II, September 2019. Image my own)

Visible, Yet Hidden

I am visible, yet hiding –
balancing a vitality-blocking
disorder that renders me
inanimate, repulsive –

Who doesn’t flinch
in the face of deviancy?

Creativity obsesses
grasps hope that courage
will annihilate the beast,
that resourcefulness
is all it takes to overcome –
Hold on!  it cries, nestled
deep within the grief –

Oh, you think you see me,
but I assure you, my friend,
you do not – I am rebel,
lost in isolation, vulnerability
fantasizing revolution –

Resolve trapped between
the exaggeration of infinite
possibility and the unremarkable
defence of compulsion to survive –
thrive even, if spirit was not
so aghast at current setbacks.

(Image my own)

Nothing is Lost

The garments of past successes
are not lost in life’s shuffle
but reapplied with new panache

What once served to polish presentation
now accentuates gained wisdom –

service is service
whether salaried
and noteworthy
or humbly given

I apply my passion to a higher cause
and am rewarded with space to grow
and companionship along the way

Discovering that life experience
bears worth – a liberating
and empowering awakening.

(Image my own)

Self Portrait in Colours

Found an old diary –
days when I prayed to the angels
painted myself white, believed
in a God that cared about personal
agendas – painted myself pathetic

Took me back to days of heartbreak,
when I pined after a man, unavailable,
painted myself pink – an altruistic heart
yearning after the unrequitable,
willing to sacrifice, change –
painted myself foolish

Read between the lines about a woman
so desperately co-dependent she’d risk it all,
painted herself yellow, projected sunshine,
believed in fairy tale endings, threw away
dignity, sanity – painted herself delusional

Wondered how she’d ever survive,
knew that life intervened in the end,
painted her broken –
and somehow she found strength,
moved on, made better choices,
learned to love herself,
painted herself indigo.

(Self Portrait in Colours first appeared here Aug/2016. Image my own)