A Poem Started Years Ago

A Poem Started Years Ago

By Alice Walker

In a few years I will be eighty.  Eighty.

What does it feel like to grow old?

Well, it’s true you get tired a lot

And take these delicious, bottomless

Naps

And also you forget at least half

Of the stuff

That doesn’t matter to you.

I’m liking it a lot.

Still, there are things that rankle:

Like this abortion business.

And so I will need to speak on that

As someone who knows,

and remembers the terrain,

Quite well.

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