Flags

My yard is adorned with flags:
pink, orange and yellow.
They mark where the sprinkler-heads go,
each in correct degrees:
three-sixties, one-eighties, 
and those that are covering corners: 
the jump-up ninety-degree wonders. 

A new kind of rain
designed for this particular yard
and for the plants
whether trees or bushes or flowers:
some short, some tall,
and a host of in-between sizes, 
displaying a variety of shapes. 

And, of course, there’s grass
and walks and curbs and stretches
where no grass grows,
but are given to different size flowers
with differing perfumes and colors. 
It’s a lot of room.
aAthird of it requiring mowing.

And, of course, the seasons
when trees and bushes bloom,
each with its own scents, 
leaves that differ in form 
and color each spring, each fall;
then in winter disrobe to their skeletons:
showing timid bones. 

Who could ever want more than this: 
change that occurs through the years, 
just as we in our ways change our beauty:
short to tall, slim to fat, 
young and careless to understanding? 

Or so it’s thought.

We’re expected as we age to be gentler, 
less judging and more forgiving;
less absorbed with ourselves,
less caring what others think.
Hence, are free to become what we are
through the wear and tear  
that is living
to become with other elders united:

no longer in need of complaining,
letting anger go;
having given up fictional pride;
in some ways dead,
but hanging on 

to beauty we still can experience
that soon is gone.

This, I think, is the wisdom of age: 
to appreciate what we have,
what we are, 
even what we’ve been:
too often having been discouraged
and too long been numbed
by focusing on everything gone wrong;

instead, making this our song: 
Life is…and I, too…am beautiful.
While much is wrong, I’m focused 
on all that is good, what I know is right.
In this way, I try
to enjoy every minute of life 
I have undeservedly been given;

so may at the end leave rejoicing,
give a loud Amen
in the hope of more life to be given
of a different kind
to which I may still contribute
as I trust in this one I have done.