The following poem by Marie Howe is one of my new favorites. It explains, in much better words than I could ever create, something that has been on my mind lately. I'm a bit younger than Howe, but I've been grappling with my own mortality of late, especially after having my son and realizing that as fast as he grows, I am growing even faster. I'll be almost sixty when he graduates high school. Will I have a chance to meet my own grandkids? I am beginning to feel as if I have taken the last thirty years for granted, and now I must hurry to enjoy this earth before my own time comes.
The World by Marie Howe
(from The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, W.W. Norton & Company, 2008)
I couldn't tell one song from another,
which bird said what or to whom or for what reason.
The oak tree seemed to be writing something using very few words.
I couldn't decide which door to open - they looked the same or what
would happen when I did reach out and turn a knob. I thought I was safe,
standing there
but my death remembered its date:
only so many summer nights still stood before me, full moon, waning moon,
October mornings: what to make of them? which door?
I couldn't tell which stars were which or how far away any one of them was,
or which were still burning or not - their light moving through space like a
long
late train - and I've lived on this earth so long - 50 winters, 50 springs and
summers,
and all this time stars in the sky - in daylight
when I couldn't see them, and at night when, most nights, I didn't look.
* Note: indented lines have been altered because of formatting issues.
I love this. Even though it's not encouraging to a woman who's nearly 30 and no where near having children of her own.
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