When I'm eighty I don't want people to say,
"You're looking younger every day."
Or "You don't look your age at all!"
I want them to say that I am beautiful
like a winter rose holding its petals snug,
brilliant as I was in the greenness of spring,
the full-blooming summer,
and the gold-wilting fall.

Letting my children go
was like throwing open a pigeon coop.
They flew in all directions
and I fluttered right behind them
cooing, cajoling, corralling, counseling
and watching with pride as they built their own nests.

Now that my grandchildren are fledglings
a different image flashes before me.
I am holding a bow,
the string is taut
and though my hand is steady and my eyes focused,
my stomach is twisted into anxious braids.

As I let the arrow fly, my gaze follows its course
until it vanishes from sight.
I stay rooted to the ground,
no longer able to fly along.
My heart contracts. I hope
I have infused the slender missile with all my love.

Special objects hold time.
People live on in them.

The silver-plated brush
with yellowed bristles
stroked my grandmother's long black hair.
A lipstick imprint on the rim
of my mother's dainty porcelain cup
recalls years of afternoon teas.
The soft threads in my lover's sweater
carry his familiar scent,
and numerous love-worn toys and books
tell of children and grandchildren.

Such objects gleam with meaning,
bring consolation,
allow us to live with death,
and ground us
in the here and now.