The milkweed and the wind: a poem on aging as renewal
The years pass without ceremony.
They do not always announce themselves.
Sometimes they slip by like quiet weather,
like afternoons we cannot later recall
except by the way the light
once rested against a wall.
Time moves like autumn wind,
unannounced,
persistent,
tender in its own indifferent way.
A milkweed stands in a field,
having grown tall without noticing
the exact moment it became mature.
Its green has deepened,
its stem stiffened with understanding.
Now the wind arrives,
and the pods open
not in grief,
but in readiness.
Each …
