MOTHER WILLIAMS: ON BECOMING OLD

“I am old,” said Mother Williams

while she sat on the bench

beside the jogging trail

as two youths sweated past,

“And I do not want to jiggle

and jounce my bones

and innards like a horse or a dog.”

“I am old,” she repeated to herself,

“but this last summer I climbed

the Eiffel Tower just because

I had never done so before—

And the view was superb.”

“I am old,” she said again,

“yet it was just this spring

that I walked as pilgrims might

into the quiet of Fuji’s heights.”

“I am old,” she admitted once again,

“yet new dreams come to me

with the dawn, and the moon

brings only the promise of tomorrow

not the sorrow of time passed.”

“Ah, yes,” she sighed, “I am old.”

Then she added with a knowing smile,

“But never was I so young before.”