Creative Writing Ink October Winner

Learning to grow young

Sheila Jacob

As for those other
bold brave hopeful words
they’re inked on paper kites
set free to follow the wind
and the seagulls’ cry.

I need new words
for a changing time
when seasons bow
like walking-sticks
towards a wintry sun.

Will they come
from this ageing woman
whose hands fold moth-like
over an empty page?

Her face is contoured
with sixty-something years,
her hair mostly white
beneath its salon-tinted brown,
her eyes so dry they weep.

Inside her heart
she has a song.

I watch, listen.

The moth-wings
catch the glow
of it,

open and dance
across a rustling page.

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