Money

Although I’m told 
I am losing the benefits of age
because of my frugal existence,
it isn’t true.

I do turn down the heat, 
turn off lights when I leave a room, 
resole old shoes,
and lunch once again with a friend 
at noon each month.

I pay my bills,
send gifts for birthdays and Christmas,
always make do
with each and every payment due
I have not forgotten.

To tell the truth,
something seemingly rarer than it was,
life’s become more costly,
still not as much as once was.

In fact, I know 
of beauty not kept in a museum,
that the cost of love 
is the loneliness of being alone 
with what’s remembered.

And so I dream
of things that never were, but should have been.
That’s pure enjoyment!
The dream, after all, is my own,
no one to dispute it.
A lovely thing
to once in life know freedom.

Let freedom ring!