White Haired at Fifty-Nine

At fifty-nine the mirror holds
a woman I both know & don’t,
her hair silvering into truth,
her face a map of weathered faith.

Independence has its quiet price,
a house where silence hums
like a second heartbeat,
a chair never warmed by another.

Yet I will not barter myself away
to fill the hollow with half-love,
will not bend to comfort
that costs the marrow of my soul.

Gratitude walks beside me,
for mornings, for breath,
for the freedom to choose
my own rhythm, my own room.

Still there lingers an ache…
not for a man, not for a name,
but for something shapeless,
a ghost of closeness
I cannot quite name.

So I stand here, white-haired,
a little lonely, a little luminous,
learning that to be alone
is not always to be lost..
sometimes it is simply
to be sovereign.

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