A Million New beginnings

I listen as the young ones speak

with souls bared and hearts still fierce

though blood drips despair

thinly hidden under brave words

constantly conjured to keep it at bay

They write of bright hopes,

of meaningful strivings

everyday intimacies

of marriage and divorce

the intricate and painful details

of broken dreams

a story that must be told and retold

Of what should I write?

All this lies behind me now

like some strange and foreign country

dimly remembered

What of any dramatic unfolding can I relate,

sitting as I am by my fireplace

memorizing the flames

with a cat stretched on my knee

and one by my raised feet

fur soft and warm in the comfort

Time lays a different pattern now

Even busy details can be broken down

and spread out one by one

like colored beads on twine

Time can still collapse in on itself

and leave me frayed and frantic

but there exists an ongoing expansiveness

which is new and full

of life and light and possibility

And , as at a certain turning point of youth

I stand at the crossroads

where paths spread out in all directions

I stand at the threshold

of a million new beginnings

Radha