Coming and Going
– a poem by Alexandra Hepburn
Have you ever marveled
as I have, so often,
at the ceaselessness of change?
Nothing seems to stand still –
Moon fades, Sun appears, then sets –
clouds, or rain, drought or snow or wind –
nothing is forever.
Our children grow like trees –
if life is kind.
If we are patient learners, we may discover ways
to nurture and protect,
so they can become themselves
and flourish.
No guarantee.
Everywhere you look,
change seems in motion –
sometimes for better, sometimes not –
cars, phones, how we make money,
who we love or leave,
how we sleep or dream,
how we age.
One day, if time is kind,
we wake up to discover –
to our genuine surprise –
we are not just “aging” –
we have passed through
an unexpected gateway –
we have “grown old.”
How shall we meet this revelation?
As a terrifying harbinger
of death?
As an unrelenting list
of things to do
(now, not later, no longer someday)?
Might we perhaps, instead,
feel flooded with
unanticipated waves
of thanksgiving
for what we have seen and felt and been given,
and hopefully given to others,
known and unknown?
And oh, might we feel
a surprising curiosity,
a wave of wonder
about the journey yet to come –
What Mystery awaits?
Photo by İbrahim Hakkı Uçman: https://www.pexels.com/photo/four-leaves-on-wooden-board-691067/