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All in Everything

My heart as empty as a room the party’s left behind,
I tell myself I am at peace and that I do not mind;
but it may be pertinent, if I am being truthful,
to admit as I say these words, that I am feeling ruthful.

Day-by-day, I improvise, insisting I am free.
‘I” can pursue anything not limited by “we.”
Driving past the railroad tracks, an engine rushing by
reminds me of those trips when I was young and wild and high.

Cheyenne out to Oregon, Sydney to Melbourne town.
Always a new place and new adventure going down.
That local train in Java, stopping a thousand times
at every local village–the hawkers and the mimes 

flooding all the aisles and all the window frames
insistently proficient in their selling games.
All the places where I went teeming with new faces,
constantly observing as life put me through its paces.

Before old age annexed me, I had a brilliant life
as student and explorer, as writer, artist, wife.
Those inevitable things, grave and prompting sorrow
were always covered over by the prospect of tomorrow.

But now that tomorrow is not such a certain thing,
I simply fall in line with whatever life may bring.
Knowing that I can’t flee fate, still I have seized my power
by finding a whole universe in bee and bird and flower.

j

Prompt words today are empty room, pertinent, improvising, annex, railroad tracks and grave.