You Might Wonder

After all these assumed years,
chock full of confusion and delight,
how have I so suddenly come
to this moment—sitting with
my mother and my sister
in the back of a room full of elders?

We sit, upright and slumped,
in wheelchairs and walkers,
and together receive the love
and bright attention of the woman up front
who jokes and sings familiar tunes of the forties.

We are a faint audience,
but she does not waiver
in her lively patter and song.
She calls each of us by name
and invites and delights in whatever soft word
or sassy comment we have available.

From the perspective of
my relative youth at the end
of my seventieth decade, I am
again reminded that the fullness
of life comes in many forms.

The true life that is who we always are
does not diminish, it only changes form—
like a mighty river that twists and bends
without complaint, as it naturally flows
back to the sea from which it came.