Poem

This is my life, I say, and I don’t know if there’ll be another.
The chill day stretches before me,
the gray hours waiting to be filled.

Red balloons announce a party,
a phone call tells me
of a friend’s debilitating stroke,
sun breaks through the clouds
and a flash of yellow wings
lights up the juniper.

How do I contain this uneasy mix
except to say that other days
happened so, and ready or not,
this is my life I’m learning late
to accept. Here I am, there I was,
and God knows how we end.

This morning it could be enough
to remember the teaching, then
to go from my chair into
everything given, all that is
right now coming toward me.

Jeanne Lohman lives in Olympia, Wash.