My friend Lyrinda Sheppard posted this poem by Jeannette Encinias on July 7.  Today is September 30.

My internal response was “Later.  I don’t have time now to explore these words.”

But what if I had died on August 12, untouched by Jeannette’s soaring thoughts?

Places to go, people to meet.   Yes, of course, but also verse to be lifted by.

Listen to the poet:

Beneath The Sweater And The Skin

How many years of beauty do I have left?
she asks me

How many more do you want?
Here.  Here is 34.  Here is 50

When you are 80 years old
and your beauty rises in ways
your cells cannot even imagine now
and your wild bones grow luminous and
ripe, having carried the weight
of a passionate life

When your hair is aflame with winter
and you have decades of
learning and leaving and loving
sewn into the corners of your eyes
and your children come home
to find their own history
in your face

When you know what it feels like to fail
ferociously
and have gained the capacity
to rise and rise and rise again

When you can make your tea
on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon
and still have a song in your heart
Queen owl wings beating
beneath the cotton of your sweater

Because your beauty began there
beneath the sweater and the skin,
remember?

This is when I will take you
into my arms and coo
YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING
you’ve come so far

I see you
Your beauty is breathtaking

***

And what of the future?

May my passionate life continue

May others find themselves in my face

May I fail some more

May the song be in my heart and on my lips

May I hug myself

And may the beauty linger