Of what do I write in my forty-eighth year?
Perhaps of the lessons I’ve learned?

Are life’s many secrets now whimsically clear,
Or perhaps my achievements, unearned?

A middle-aged woman, with secrets and fears,
who abandoned her dreams long ago.

In their place grew adjustment to lack-luster years,
And the good sense to reap what I’d sow.

Those desperate hours, so hurtfully near.
Of which I would not have predicted.

And now it seems so prudently clear,
that my wounds, they were all self inflicted.

No, being this age in itself is the gift,
My accomplishments to me are dear.

I know not the day of my axial shift,
but a shift is most certainly clear.

What pleasure I take in the simplest things,
when as a youth, I would not have found.

I still want to fly with my God given wings,
but I also find joy on the ground.