Tuesday, January 8, 2019

"How Many Years Of Beauty Do I Have Left"


How many years of beauty do I have left?
she asks me.
How many more do you want?
Here. Here is 34. Here is 50.

When you are 80 years old
and your beauty rises in ways
your cells cannot even imagine now
and your wild bones grow luminous and
ripe, having carried the weight
of a passionate life.

When your hair is aflame
with winter
and you have decades of
learning and leaving and loving
sewn into 
the corners of your eyes
and your children come home
to find their own history
in your face.

When you know what it feels like to fail
ferociously
and have gained the 
capacity
to rise and rise and rise again.

When you can make your tea
on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon
and still have a song in your heart
Queen owl wings beating
beneath the cotton of your sweater.

Because your beauty began there
beneath the sweater and the skin,
remember?

This is when I will take you 
into my arms and coo
YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING
you've come so far.

I see you.
Your beauty is breathtaking.

~ Jeannette Encinias

[Image by Tony Cunha of Beatrice Wood. Found on The Cosmic Dancer]

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