BECOMING SIXTY
There was terror and anger
at coming into sixty.
Would I give birth
only to my old age?
Now near sixty-one
I count the gifts that sixty gave.
A book flowed from my life
to those who needed it
and love flowed back to me.
In a yard that had seemed full,
space for another garden appeared.
I took my aloneness to Quaker meeting,
and my outstretched palms were filled.
I walked further along the beach,
swam longer in more sacred places,
danced the spiral dance,
reclaimed daisies for women
in my ritual for a precious friend
and received poet’s wine
from a new friend who came
in the evening of my need.