As a child my mother used to wake me
most mornings by drawing the curtains
so the light flooded into my room
causing me to burrow, groaning
into my blankets, but there was
no escape there, because she would
strip them off me, and I would
sit up protesting. Wakeful.

As a young adult, I woke myself
before dawn, hurriedly, quietly,
even as the cathedral's bells pealed
across an already wakeful city,
black stone glowing an eerie red,
muffled footsteps hurrying to prayer,
prayer before all things, cold floor
under my knees, head bowed.

As an adult, duty and sacrifice,
faith and servitude, my time
was never my own, I barely
managed to spend time with
my growing children, moments
snatched from other moments,
sleep even more so, and rest.
Never restful.

And on the cusp of one hundred,
I stand on a precipice,
after I came up gasping for air,
the bones of a former life
under the tender flesh of
my present, old ghosts have
fallen away and the horizon
is visible. Eyes closing, I sleep.

Penned by my hand on the 25th of Lupar, in the year 938 AF.