Instagram flashes faces
Of young people frozen in
frames reminding me of the days when
every adventure was that of a lifetime,
when the first plane trip soared the highest,
when Mickey and Cinderella lived for real
in Walt’s magical kingdom,
when hitching Eurail tracks, backpack
and wanderlust in tow,
formed me.
Now, time and the collective memory
of every trip, every expectation, every friend
every love and lost love, every new interest
become the comparative lens
through which I judge each new journey.
So tonight, on the cusp of what for me
is both brilliantly simple and outrageously
complex, I wonder if I should dare…
Rarely does my 50-year old self
feel the excitement, a true anticipation.
Rarely do I let the adrenaline flow
the way it did for my five year-old niece
when the princesses appeared on Main Street,
Rarely, do I risk the kind of criticism
that I so freely dished out for 20 years
to my 3000
students.
But tonight. It is as if
some starstuff has been spared
for a 50 year old poet
and her dream.
Thanks, Tink.
Word Play 