Beginning Again

All this hair, curly and strong Wiping around the cheeks surrounding the eyes swiping it from where they cut and stapled Growing in storms dark brown and white as a Winter snow who am I who will I be A old woman reading a book while waiting for the last winter my natural family is gone, one destroyed himself after a war MY husbands nieces and nephews not one will morn Some are counting the days till we die, there is always one Others busy with life’s gifts— daughters and sons Computer gigs alI, raised in a language that has become foreign and strange now I read of strangers in cold days where lamps and wood and oil kept us warm enough to survive. And I was seen As a witch, gathering herbs with a cane, watching tv not computers, reading book not Kindles last night And I wonder will we all be back in tim again When we haul water in jugs and are depending on helpers who resent us as we limp about and doctors are for the rich and the earth is aging for the rest when the time comes us are placed i n boxes or our ashes in the cold dark waters One listening to our small sweet song birds chirping for seeds and the caukes of hungry crows lights out and it is cool and gray with water droplets in the trees and grasses. the wetness a gift. Pray that March brings us more. I am getting older and so is the sun We have scientists now but it seems they only mourn the stupidity of our kind Pray and meditate that I am alive enough to breathe the air feed the dogs and birds And read a good book about the good life which may yet return I fear that man is on a path to destruction and that nuclear world has been waken by a Russian mad man. Be strong young ones, be strong You may have to start again.