I thought about how when I was young
I thought I wouldn’t argue about politics
or pay attention to people in power when I was old,
that I would arrange Gerber daisies and lilies,
watch crows through binoculars on Tuesdays,
thought I would savor each morning I woke,
notice the scent of rain before water hit the ground,
When I was old, I kept busy rather than was busy
and there was a day I drove up to the top of a mountain,
pulled my chair out of my trunk, hung my sweater
around my neck, a peach in my purse. I sat for hours
eating that peach, watching the valley below
as orange colored juice dripped
down my fingers, my wrists, my arms.
The birds that flew by, were not with me in this world,
but part of an unfolding landscape
I watched then from afar,
when I was old.
–Liza Wolff-Francis
Saturday's Sirens 