How would I know age
If youth had not come first
If I never loved my mother’s hands
Her graceful Itsy Bitsy Spider
Whirling on the waterspout
How would I cherish
My own tendons and lines
Would I know need
If I never read Lassie Come Home
Or yearned for feelings I couldn’t hold
Cried for a sadness that might have been anger
Or grief
Or simply a puppy
I couldn’t name and keep
Would my thirties know sorrow and loss
And regret
If my teens didn’t know them first
If I never found my private brook
And memorized its every curve
And thought myself the only girl
To ever walk its banks
Would age be like stepping into water
Blind and deaf
Barely sensate
Unaware of how I once
Leapt far from the bank
Without needing to know
What depths would find me
Would age come at all
If youth didn’t long for it
Search for ways to hurry it
For the simple freedom
Of knowing grief from anger
And choosing what things
To name and keep
Like the memory of my mother’s hands
Trying to explain
The nature of longing
How I would always be
That Itsy Bitsy Spider
Yearning for whatever waits
Atop the waterspout
Rae Spencer is a writer and veterinarian living in Virginia. Her poetry has been published in Willows Wept Review, The Driftwood Review, Melusine, Five Fishes Journal, vox poetica, and elsewhere. In 2009, she received a Pushcart Prize nomination. She can be found online at www.raespencer.com.
| When I study my hands, I am tempted to resent the wrinkles and spots that betray age. Except I remember a time when growing older felt wonderful. "Longing" is the result. |
