my friend has just turned 40 and I wish to
welcome her
to perform an act of havening
because the field ahead,
though rife with trenches,
is wide and teems with
winged life
at 40 one knows that sorrow could be just around the corner and
now is the time to dig up the lawn of your youth
and plant a waystation
to abandon a life of perfectionist whims and
in simplicity embrace:
extra curves
deep rooted matrilineage
ample neighboring
(when we are truly old will we say about these times:
can you believe!
how young we were
how the constraints focused us
while the love freed us?)
at 40 we are making nosegays and
collecting fresh friendships while
dreams desiccate
or are freed by regal burial proceedings
only now can you know what to consign to
healthy rot or
gilded preservation
forty finds us divining
with the rods of our foremothers that
the replacement dreams are ones
we’ve known all along
dispatches from a buried self
surfacing now as the winds of loss
have sheared our rocky faces into
a sustainable and more compassionate landscape
and friend, when you are twice 40
you will find someone who needs it and
whisper to her
through the drooping goldenrod
how much she already belongs!
— she has always belonged!
September 2024