Wednesday, April 20, 2011

day 20 pome 18: silver

Ode to the Silver Hair on My Crown:

You weren't there at all, and then
you were, fully formed. That is, there never was
a time in which I saw a hair
half-silver and half-brown. No,
just last week you appeared in the mirror,
no warning, no call, no letter. And I

stared. I thought of pulling you out,
and almost did, I'm sorry to say. But you
were silver, not gray, silver in the way
of stories of magic, perhaps like a
Pegasus hair. I used to believe
in Pegasus, back when I was much
too young for you to appear on my crown.

But here you are, and I, nearly thirty,
have already accepted that I am not
immortal, nor magical like Pegasus. At least
you are silver and shining, not dull,
not flat, not a white that might yellow,
and so you shall stay, in order to teach
your sister around you how to shine, for soon

enough I will be forty, then fifty, and then
one day, dead and forgotten but perhaps
if I can leave this life as a Pegasus
none of that will matter. Shine on.

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