My heart fills with joy
Each time I see HP notifications coming by.
“Someone loved your poem” makes me believe,
Confidence blooming in words I weave.

I smile while reading comments in delight,
Each word feels like a guiding light.
“Someone reposted it” gives me gentle thrills,
A kindness that lingers, a warmth that instills.

And when my poem starts trending high,
I whisper thank you, with tears in my eye.

Oh gosh, how has that day of the year
Come around so fast, again…
That dreaded school photo day!

The day that marks progression,
The day that celebrates successful transition,
The day that snaps aging,
And the day that puts front and centre all that I have been avoiding!

Everything in me wants to ‘dream up’
Some wildly legitimate reason for my (ab)sense —

But then I am reminded of the sentiment from a wise friend,

“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle…”

Ok, Paul, I will bear up and I will buck up!

I won't hide and be a prisoner to this Western world of beauty —

But, I will celebrate my aging with this portrait,

It will thus be known as,

“Portrait of a lady who lived authentically” —

As I am an older gent, am I, who appreciates the finer finds
of god's inventional interventions, acknowledges
though born by theft of mine bone,
all creatures feline,
I admittedly knowledge this
only heightens their aromatic scintiilating
Je ne sais quoi, that being how one says in French
"I don't what it is exactly, but I loves me some a lot!"

but I play favorites,
and her name is inscribed
in my rapidly aging brain, which
by the bye, is a poor excuse for writing
such a lame po-em
but what the heck,
lucky you, gets to smoke
the chaff & wheat

I say the words
That may or may not help me
I say the names
That may or may not be heard.
I cry the daily tears
That may or may not heal me
And gather up the strength
To face another day of pain
Without a bird outside my window.
         ljm