Re-beginning

 

(Taken 10 Nov 2026, two days before my 87th birthday.)

On this day every year, I start again.

In the morning, two minutes past seven,

I enter the world. When my dad comes

to see my exhausted mother, she whispers

weakly, through tears of joy, ‘Oh Rob, 

it’s a girl!’ They’d both craved a daughter.

Now I’m no girl but an old woman.

87 years old! I wake in my widowed bed,

wriggle and stretch. Before I get up,

I drum my feet on the floor, to stir

my circulation. At least I’m not yet

reduced to a crawl. I rise up. Here I stand.

So many years … moving forward in play

with cousins, little brother, neighbour kids;

to school, shy and short-sighted, bookish

and hopeless at sport, not popular, but

always one or two close confidential friends;

finding my way as an adult, a disguised misfit.

Dancing (two left feet) and tentative dating.

Passions and loves and marriages and amours.

Progressing to motherhood … as well as all 

the darling cats and dogs. And of course 

the loving friends who’ve blessed my life.

Those who have left, yet walk beside me still.

Closer to 90 than 80, I walk with assistance now –

loving my walker (which can do as a chair, or even 

a shopping basket) and I walk with knowledge.

Not everyone walks so long, or so far. I lead,

as I’ve always said, a charmed life (despite 

the usual quota of shocks, tragedies and horrors). 

It’s a warm morning. My home is a safe-enough 

space, with beautiful views. My family and friends

are sending birthday messages. I am not yet  

wandering into dementia or total decrepitude.

(I forget some names, briefly. My bodily functions

have become interesting, more than since I was small.)

I can’t round the poem off, though I keep trying.

I know enough to know, life isn’t often satisfyingly neat.

I know that it endlessly repeats itself – but 

with variations. I know it both declines and expands.

What a know-it-all I’ve become! I start over

and walk forward, ever nearer to the great unknown.

Written for Poets and Storytellers United for Friday Writings #253: Starting from Experience.