Wisdom Years

Much to my surprise, good friend and fellow blogger, Barbara Sliter, posted a poem yesterday in honor of my birthday - The Wisdom Years.  She wrote it as a followup to my Shifting Ground.  Her words remind me that loss is not without gain.  Thank YOU, Barbara, for allowing wisdom to speak through you.

Her post follows:

The Wisdom Years
by Barbara Sliter

I write this on your birthday, an artificial marker
for the event we call “ life,” jarring us
into life’s profound questions

Our experiences are piled up against the door
and old hopes and dreams start to hang
in the air like so much smoke

Anticipated losses can start stealing today’s joy right out from under us long before
the real pain occurs

We watch our life shape shifting into an unknown as the familiar and the loved start to slip away growing up, growing away, passing on

We fear being left behind, left standing alone
in the middle of the empty field named for who we thought we were

But it is in the midst of this upset that wisdom is born surrendering to the mystery we didn’t create letting grace flow as it wants to do

These are the wisdom years, when we know the least...because what choice is there but to keep openingin love to what is coming 
                                                    
[Photo by Barbara Sliter.  Sculpture by Jerry Minton]

Comments

[Barbara Sliter]

You are welcome - Barbara