This Is What Life Does

 

This Is What Life Does

This is what life does.

It smooths your edges; quiets you down

Brings you to your knees; your creaky knees.

It gives you a new sky each morning

Which you can enjoy, remark upon, photograph, paint, fuss over, ignore.

This is what life does. 

It levels you; removes the rungs, if you're lucky,

and gives you a field where everyone can play.

This is what life does

It takes away your father the year you turn 40.

It keeps your mother alive to cry and 

wish she could die; Past 95.

This is what life does.

It gives you daughters who stump you when they're younger 

and dazzle you more and more as each day passes.

And grandchildren! Oh the grandchildren!

A paradise of all things miraculous.

And a man; a man who loves you and sticks by you

even when you're someone you don't even like much.

This is what life does

It gives you a neighbor the same age as your mother;

blind and lame, living alone, minus daughters,

minus grands, with an attitude you marvel at...

always upbeat, always alert, always welcoming.

This is what life does.

It surprises, quiets, astonishes, dazzles.

It terrifies you with all sorts of scary imaginary and real things.

 And it gives you poets, and stories, and teachers and farmers 

and artists, and  musicians and music to make you dance 

even when you're driving.

Nurses, cooks, workers, and neighbors and friends.

And the mountains…the glorious Smoky Mountains.

And Jones Creek Road and Timber Ridge

And flame azaleas and goats beard in your garden

This is what life does

It takes you to new places of evolution

And yes, erosion and decay

But also expansion…in a good way

It molds you and forms you and gives you away.

KAStilwell