After Age Seventy – Five

by Roxie Powell

Like all the rest of life
Seventy five came and went
And I went to bed
Curiously free of cares and
Complexity

Next morning, lying awake
Staring into nothing, thinking
Nothing
Something in my consciousness
Startled me there in the dark
Allowing me to grow aware of
A new pattern
which had emerged.

This pattern seemed important
Not for what it contained
but for what was absent.

The gauze – like web which had
Always clouded my clarity
Was absent,
My sense of understanding
the one thing which had
Been with me from the beginning
Which was the exact and perfect
Experience of my death
Was lifted.

A lucidity as fresh as new life
Dwelt in my consciousness —
I felt born again,  I laughed
There in the dark,
Me ? Born again — at age zoom ?

How ridiculous could life be ?
And then I knew: more
Ridiculous than I could imagine;
So I surrendered to the void
whatever it is that remains.