Midlife Miracle
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
A poem by Cheri
I -- with wrinkled skin
and pooching waistline-- am
a wineskin, old and soft
filled
with unwanted wisdom:
life as acidic, astringent, blunt.
Gone are the glass clinking, dizzying days,
the "Hear, hear" to dreams untainted,
untouched.
Broken bottles, emptied
and overturned trays of ash
are my "anything's possible" after-the-party mess
Surveying the scene I climb back into bed
too tired,
too weathered for a New Day.
But, you cannot leave me with "more of the same."
You know the risk:
New Wine will only an old skin burst.
So you join the party
run sexy Carpenter Hands over
those wasted years,
annointing scars with tender tears,
turning and tilling heart's soil as you
remember me
remember me
like a map.
"I made you in a secret place, woven together in earth's depths,
knitted together in your mother's dark womb."
Your whisper sends tingles down my arching spine,
and I awaken to the Miracle,
topsy turvy but true:
Ageless,
without wrinkle or blemish,
protecting, preserving,
You've been the Wineskin all along,
And I
-by your touch-
am water to
full-bodied wine.
