Our Life Purpose

Judy's portrait by Anne Shields, part of a group portrait of North Carolina women of letters, 1992, screen shot from my website.

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Full Bloom 28  February 5, 2017

If aging doesn’t firm up our life purpose
we lose ground rapidly. We’ve been
moseying along, doing our best but not
having to walk into a stiff wind and work
to keep our goals in the front of our minds.
Sleep pulls us in before we know what
has happened. Time sifts so easily between
our fingers. To achieve what we wish to
leave completed behind us means focusing
anew every day on our life purpose, which
is entwined now with our lifetime goals. 
In my earthbound life what have I learned? 
To see people’s goodness and contradictions,
to know most of us are doing the best we can,
that we all fail and stumble more than we
want to. I see where most are blind, but
then it’s also true that I’m seen. What I
give comes back around to sustain me.
We all want to be seen and known for who 
we are, for that core in us that makes us 
different from every other living soul.
In my core I know I’m alone more than
most. I have work only I can do: books
to publish, a justice fight to finish if I
can. I must take care of this community 
which welcomed a stranger and the farm
where I grow my food, the integrity of
purpose I’ve kept these nearly eighty years. 
I can’t afford to die until I’ve finished.