Making a U

Age bitters like a bowl of dandelion greens.

Our vigor wilts:

Cotton candy too long

kissed by summer’s sweat.

Our skin recedes:

Fields in drought

Wrinkled in need

Our minds shrivel:

Grapes in the sun,

bruised, turned dark

You believed only that.

Prepared for a long, slow end.

Wailed against time in unbroken rage.

Once I hoped like a perennial plant,

You’d grow gentler someday.

But you died dozens of deaths in a season.

Wrapped holiness until you emptied.

As age has come for me,

I tasted vinegar and celebrated its softer roots.

The white oblivion of time is sunlight distilled.

And what is light if not all the colors singing?

If adversity spurs growth, comfort bears fruit.

I believe only this:

The sum of experience is

Once per lifetime.

I want to savor mine.