The Late Years Twenty-Five

Judy congratulating Jaki Shelton Green, North Carolina's poet laureate whom she first published in 1977. Photo, August, 2018.

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The Late Years Twenty-Five April 21, Easter Sunday, 2019

When you grow old, even though you still do
most things, the important things: write and
publish your books, make bread and pizza,
spaghetti sauce and fresh egg omelets,
and walk without a cane, don’t be dismayed
when people have forgotten about all you
once did and got away with–opening so many
gates to let more people in–at the councils, 
in the literary community, publishing poets
no one ever heard of, and now they’re famous–
more famous than you are. But it wasn’t fame
you were after but opening doors by challenging
the authority of the state, even of the nation.
Don’t let it get you down when they close you
out, can’t see how you could draw an audience
to a book reading. They don’t see the tree you 
are, how wide under the earth is your root
system, how high are your branches, shading
the earth, succoring birds, keeping the air
clean and sweet where your love gives shade.
Remember that you’re a tree, a huge, two-hundred-
year old white oak, standing through generations 
beside the road where so many cars and long-
haul trucks pass daily and scarcely notice you.
It’s part of life, to be loved and treasured by a
few but ignored and then forgotten by the ones
deciding things now. Go where they want you
and have felt and loved your ability to make a
new community out of a handful of strangers.
Do what you do best. Tell the whole story
of what you life has been like, of those who
treasured you, of those who do remember.

In time, they all will.